Flying Again
by esama
Summary: Harry learns languages and philosophy and mathematics and misses something important, while elsewhere Charlie thinks of pearls and foolish dreams and is unable to find the right dragon. Harry Potter-Temeraire crossover rebirth fic, somewhat slashy.
1. 1 to 50

**Flying again**

1.

The first thing Charlie remembers is staring at a stuffed dragon toy, and wondering why it was green instead of black. He asks this of his father, who considers it a moment and then pulls out his wand to change the toy into a black dragon instead. For some reason, it doesn't make Charlie satisfied.

2.

Harry's first memory is of green light and his skin crawling. For years he will have nightmares of that moment, of the screams of his mother and of Voldemort's laughter, but it takes much, much longer for him to remember the brief transformation and how comfortable wings are.

3.

Charlie feels often wrong in his home - and oddly happy for it. He doesn't know why, but seeing his father lifting his sons up to play with them was somehow rewarding - and when his mother took out a spatula and chased her errant husband across the kitchen, odd age old pain inside him unclenches and he doesn't quite understand why.

4.

Harry's first days in Dursley house hold consist of yelling and hunger, and tight crowded spaces that made him feel trapped and lonely. The Dursleys, though he cannot name them quite yet, do not like him and do not want him and though he can't understand everything yet, he understands this well enough. He understands what it means when his cousin gets more food than he does. But he doesn't like to go without, he doesn't like unfairness and he likes hunger even less, so he cries and _roars_ and shatters every window in the living room.

5.

Charlie learns to read quicker than Bill did. He doesn't know why, but it seems important like he's supposed to be reading something specific, something special. If only he knew what. He reads every book in the house in search of that special book he thinks he ought to be reading, but the ones about gardening and house work and muggle electronics do not settle the odd feeling of unease inside him.

6.

The Dursleys fear him now, and Harry feels a little sad about that. He only wanted to make them see the unfairness of their actions, not frighten them. But it gets his plate a little fuller and he is taken out of the tiny wooden space when he shatters the door, so maybe it's alright. He gets his own room, and his own bed and even his own toys, though most of them are Dudley's old broken cast offs. He likes the broken robot with golden chest plate the most.

7.

Unbeknownst to all, Charlie feels jealous of his brothers. They seem to be unhindered by the odd worries and anxieties he gets every now and then, and instead they play happily and without any care. Even Bill, who goes to Hogwarts now, seems perfectly careless whilst Charlie feels worry, and worry, and worry… and he doesn't quite know whom he is so worried about.

8.

Harry is smart and he knows it, but he never quite understands why Dudley isn't smart like him. Harry masters reading in matter of days and he teaches himself to write by copying the letters in books of the house, until he can write anything he wants. Dudley can't even read his own name despite how Harry tries to show him, and it baffles Harry before he realises that oh, Dudley is like, like… like someone. And though he can't remember who that someone is, it helps a little.

9.

When his uncle asks him what he will do when he grows up, the answer comes without a second thought. Charlie Weasley would fly dragons. He doesn't understand for years to come why his answer makes the whole room laugh.

10.

When Harry, at the age of barely three, corrects his uncle on a mathematical problem involving paper work, Vernon tries to send him to his room without supper. Harry doesn't stand for that, and when aunt Petunia returns from the grocery store, the boy is still scolding the man for being silly.

11.

Charlie goes to Hogwarts, looking forward to it and fearing in the same time. He has always known of the place, but he doesn't know until he steps into the castle that he didn't actually _believe_ in it. Even when the sorting hat pronounced him "a Gryffindor if it ever saw one", and he sits beside his elder brother, he still doesn't quite believe it. He thinks of pearls and foolish dreams and feels completely out of his depth.

12.

The Dursleys talk about him when they think he isn't listening, worrying and arguing. Harry tries not to listen, as it is impolite, but he can't help it, they speak so loud. They fear him and hate him and want to be rid of him but in the same time they know they are suck with him, which he doesn't quite understand. In the end, they decide to send him to school one year early.

13.

His brother drags him out of the library time and time again, wondering when he had gotten to be such a Ravenclaw. Charlie can't explain it and doesn't even try, all he feels is deep sensation of dissatisfaction. The book isn't in the Hogwarts library either, and though he found some interesting books - which oddly enough aren't that interesting to him, but which will be interesting to read - he feels like he is missing something very important.

14.

Harry thrives in school, and loves it with passion he only showed for the golden plated robot toy and someone's lost earring he had found on the street. The books, the things to learn, all the writing! It is without doubt the happiest he has been in years. More than anything, he loves the school's small library, and spends every recess there, blissfully reading mathematical texts. He never quite understands why reading them alone in the light of a desk lamp makes him feel so lonely, though.

15.

Charlie never tells it to anyone, but sometimes he looks at the Slytherin banners and feels odd sensation of wrongness. Wasn't green supposed to be his colour, now? It is strange, because he doesn't much like most Slytherins. He doesn't like how they treat other students or how they treat animals - he saw one of them kick a cat in the corridor and nearly lost his calm. He doesn't like their attitudes; most of them remind him of someone very unpleasant and very cruel. They don't deserve the green colour. It was meant for people greater than them.

16.

One girl in her class once sees Harry examining his lone earring in recess. It is a beautiful thing, shaped like a droplet with a white stone in the middle and wavy pattern around the edges - and it sparkled so nicely in sunlight. The girl giggles at him and makes fun of him, and becomes his very first friend when next day she gives him a plastic bracelet that has a silver paint coating.

17.

Charlie can't wait for the day he is in his third year and can finally study about Care of Magical Creatures. He can study about dragons in his own time, scour through breeds and types, of course, but they don't seem to be giving him the right answers. All the books seem to consider them mindless beasts fully capable of killing humans if they were allowed to. It is very dissatisfying and disheartening to read, and he can only hope that the books are wrong and a teacher could prove them so.

18.

Harry has several bracelets and even more rings and whole class full of girls he calls his friends and whom he happily helps with reading and writing when ever they ask it, when the teacher pulls him aside. She says that he is so smart and knows the material so well, that keeping him in the grade would be waste - that they want to talk with his guardians about putting him on higher grade. Harry preens with pride, and turns to say something to someone who isn't there.

19.

Charlie reads Arithmancy out loud sometimes on his free time, when his dormitory is empty and no one is there to hear it. He doesn't understand most of the texts, having picked too advanced book from the library, but it is oddly comforting for some reason. It eases the loneliness he cannot shake in the castle full of people.

20.

Harry is looked down upon by his new classmates when he starts his spring semester in different grade, but only for a while. The older girls see what the younger ones had, and soon he has a friend and then two and though the older boys still snort and poke fun at him because of his age and his bracelets, the girls are very nice. Even when he corrects them on their homework assignments, they don't seem to mind. It's enough to keep his mind pre-occupied for a while.

21.

Charlie isn't all that good with magic, and he knows it. Potions, Herbology, Astronomy and History, those he can handle easily and master quickly, but the rest of it is more difficult. And when ever McGonagall asks him to stay behind the classes so that she can show him the transfigurations again, or Flitwick calls him in for remedial charms lessons, Charlie feels slow and awkward and oddly enough too old even though he is only twelve years old. "Can you think what might be your problem with magic?" they ask. Charlie can't quite tell them that he doesn't really believe in it.

22.

What takes the others in his class weeks to learn, Harry learns in matter of hours. It seems to irritate the boys in his class and some of the girls too, but the teacher is amazed and has him do odd tests after class. Eidetic memory, they say. He doesn't understand why this is so important - until he realises that not all people remember things after one read through.

23.

The school year ends with Charlie feeling dissatisfied. He didn't find the book, the ones about dragons were disheartening, magic kept on bewildering him through the year and he is certain he should have met someone important by now and hadn't. He boards the Hogwarts express frowning.

24.

Harry's teachers and guardians talk it over for days, before aunt Petunia turns to him and asks him what he thinks of the accelerated learning program his teachers suggest. He would study thorough the summer and in the autumn he'd do tests. If he passed them, he'd go to a different school meant for especially smart children. He agrees happily, and is certain that Petunia and Vernon wouldn't have agreed to it if Harry hadn't been promised a scholarship.

25.

The summer goes past with playing with his siblings and fighting with Ginny who had learned a very irritating habit of saying no to everything. Charlie goes back to school with Bill, promising this time to keep himself busy and not think about weird things so much. This year he would try and see if he could get into the Quidditch team and have fun, Arithmancy be damned.

26.

Harry's new school doesn't allow accessories, so his rings and bracelets and one necklace he is very fond of go into a box to stay there until further notice. He is bothered about it for a while before the studies distract him and he throws himself into them fully. The mathematics is more advanced in his new school than in his last - and the library is enormous. He reads and studies and learns and for a moment forgets that he is missing something very dear.

27.

Flying, Charlie feels, is closest he has gotten to a sensation of true home. It's like that feeling he gets when he reads of dragons and Arithmancy, but put together and made soar. It feels flimsy, though, weak and fake and not at all powerful, but it's exhilarating and freeing, and on broom he forgets everything but the wind and the little golden ball he is supposed to catch. But still, afterwards he always feels like he is supposed to give the Snitch to someone else, than Madam Hooch.

28.

Time flies past. Harry buries himself in books and calculations, he absorbs difficult physics like a sponge, and spends many hours pondering over chemical reactions. He is fascinated by books about mineralogy and hogs the book about famous jewels to himself for four months before the library finally says that he needs to return it. He learns and learns and learns. Somehow, it manages to keep him content for years.

29.

When he starts his third year and the Care of Magical Creatures, Charlie tries and fails to hide his disappointment. Some of the things professor Kettleburn teachers are interesting and probably correct, but everything he says about dragons feels wrong. Still, Charlie learns it better than he has learned anything else, memorises it and even writes it all down in a journal. One day, he would prove every word wrong.

30.

Harry walks past a beauty shop on his way to school every day. It always has a mannequin in the window, a woman with beautiful wig, clothes, make up and everything. For months, if not for years, he keeps staring at the mannequin's hands. The nail polish changes over the weeks, from red to gold to brown to dark purple to grey to silver… until one day he can't take it anymore, and ventures inside. The teachers berate him for it and the kids at school make fun of him in their smart way, he honestly doesn't care. His fingernails look so nice, when they're shining in silver.

31.

Charlie flies a little every day. Even when it rains and there is no practice, he gets up early for bit of personal flying. His team mates consider him a hard worker and dedicated player, saying that one day he will be their captain, one day he will play professionally. He keeps them in that belief as he soars as high as he gets, and _longs_ to feel the beat of massive wings.

32.

Harry wins awards and writes his first mathematical paper when he is eight years old. Later he considers it juvenile and flawed and makes many changes to it, but it is only first of many and soon he becomes known in certain circles and some real mathematicians even come to meet him and they have long discussions about applied mathematics and Newtonian physics. Somehow Harry's picture is never published, despite the media coverage of his genius, and they keep getting his name all wrong.

33.

When Charlie is made a prefect, it surprises no one but him. He almost asks why, after all he had done, only to realise with some confusion that he had actually never done anything against any rules he could think of. It's an odd feeling to say at least.

34.

Harry can never explain it to himself, but sometimes, when his mind is free and there is nothing to read, he misses the ocean. It makes no sense, since he had never even seen one.

35.

When the career day comes, and professor McGonagall asks about his plans, the professor doesn't look surprised with his choices. Charlie doesn't say that he for a long while considered working briefly for money so that he could pay the tuition for the extra classes at Durmstrang - it's the only magical school in Europe that teaches sailing. He keeps it to himself mostly because he had no idea where the thought came from.

36.

It is by lucky coincidence that Harry finds the book in a cart of soon to be discarded books in the local library. It is old, worn, the covers are coming apart, and the print is ugly and messy. Something about it draws him in, however, and he picks it up gingerly to read the cover. _Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica_ by Isaac Newton, the cover says, and for the life of him he can't figure out why it brings tears to his eyes.

37.

Professor Kettleburn arrangers Charlie's first visit to the dragon reserve in the Hebrides. Charlie spends the weekend in the guidance of Andrew MacFusty, the main handler of the Hebridean Blacks that his clan is responsible, and learns more about dragons than he had ever in Hogwarts.

"I do think dragons are more intelligent than they seem," Andrew says as they stop by a female dragon brooding over a clutch of eggs. "But I don't think we've ever given them much a reason to show it to us." Charlie, having studied dragon slaying and hunts and the near extinction two thousand years ago when all wands had been made of dragon heartstrings, doesn't doubt it in the least.

38.

Harry signs himself up for Mandarin lessons over summer without a second thought, when the possibility presents itself. He takes into it almost as quickly as he took into reading and writing, only to be hindered by the surplus of symbols to memorise. The speaking part takes a little time to figure out as well, as his tongue is too adjusted to English, but he manages it quicker than anyone else in the class. The teacher, heartened by his eagerness to learn, gives him books and instructs him about bookstores where he could find more and offers him a cup of Longjing tea. It's the best Harry has ever tasted.

39.

If Charlie had felt undeserving of the prefect badge, it was nothing compared to the day when he finds the Head Boy badge in his letter. He stares at it in a long while before drawing a shuddering breath and vowing he'd do his best to live up to it, even if he feels guilty just by holding it. He will keep it, he knows, even after he graduates. It is beautiful in a simple way, golden and glossy and maybe one day he will give it to a dragon.

40.

Mandarin isn't the only language Harry learns. French comes to him even easier than Mandarin had, and though Latin is hard to master with the lack of proper teacher, he learns that as well. He doesn't know why, but in his free time he also looks over some books about Turkish and German and ponders where to find about some tongues spoken in central Africa. Somehow he feels learning Tswana would come in handy one day.

41.

Charlie leaves Hogwarts with good scores in the subjects that matter the most, and somewhat meagre ones in others. He doesn't much care about the fact that his Transfiguration and Charms scores could be better, and that maybe he should've paid a little bit more attention in Defence Against the Dark arts. He has the knowledge he needs, and two weeks after coming home he heads off to Romania to start his internship in the Longhorn Dragon Sanctuary.

42.

Harry isn't that surprised when he receives the Hogwarts letter, handed over by his aunt's slightly trembling hands. He reads over it and thinks it through for a moment. It feels natural and strange in the same time, and though he can't say why, he feels like he has been expecting it. He writes his reply in complex, loopy cursive and walks outside to hand it over to an awaiting owl. At last, he thinks.

43.

There are lot of dragons in the sanctuary - and most of them are Romanian Longhorns, which isn't much a surprise. However, Charlie doesn't have as much trouble with the dragons - attending to them and to their needs feels like second nature for him, and the dragons seem to know it too. His worse problem is with the language - most people in the sanctuary speak Romanian, and Charlie isn't too good with translation charms. But he is relentless, and keeps his eyes open, and learns.

44.

When Professor McGonagall takes him to Diagon Alley, she is scandalised by his behaviour in Gringotts. Harry can't help it, though; the pile of gold just looked so comfortable. She is mellowed some what when he buys enough books to need a magically expanded bag to carry them out of the store. She worries about the wand he buys and the argument he gets into in the potion's store, and seems to be uneasy about the fact that every magical creature they encounter seem to stare the boy in awe. Harry doesn't care. He delights in magic and in new knowledge and buys himself real silver and platinum bracelets and rings when she lets him out of her sight for too long.

45.

"You natural," says one of Charlie's instructors through a faltering translation charm. "No fear, but respect. Respect dragon, it respects you. Fear it, it eats you. You natural in respect. You be a good tamer, one day." Charlie doesn't know how to say that he has no intention of ever being a _tamer_. A dragon, despite what everyone said to him, was not a creature to be _tamed_.

46.

"That's odd," Hagrid murmurs to himself while leading Harry towards the platform the day the train is going to take him to Hogwarts. He is looking at Harry thoughtfully, not seeming to care about the bracelets, rings, necklaces and earrings at all. Instead, he is eying Harry's teal shaded eyes. "I've always though you had green eyes."

47.

A bad tempered Peruvian Vipertooth gives Charlie his first burns. He recovers in matter how hours with the help of a talented healer and some potions, but it takes a while longer for his hair to grow back.

48.

Harry meets a lot of people in the train and politely greets them all, shows them his scar and even shakes hands with few of them. He figures he would like to talk with Hermione Granger again one day and that he might as well avoid Draco Malfoy - the blonde reminded him of someone very unpleasant but he can't remember whom. Ronald Weasley is a little rude and rather nice, and Harry decides he rather likes him the best when the red haired boy teaches him about Chocolate Frog cards - which have nice golden outline - and tells him stories about his brother, who studies dragons.

49.

When they suggest putting the dragon that burned him to death, Charlie argues vehemently against it for two hours straight, before the other caretakers manage to get a word edgewise. They laugh and explain to him that no, they had never been intending to kill the dragon and that suggesting it had been a test of his character - and that by his answer he passed with flying colours. Charlie feels rather like punching the head caretaker and wonders why he feels odd sensation of déjà vu.

50.

The hat shouts out "RAVENCLAW" without ever even touching Harry's silver bead adorned hair, which he is frankly rather relieved about. He hurries to the table and shakes hands with the other Ravenclaws, and still has to run an uneasy hand over his hair, hoping it hadn't gotten dirty. It had taken so long to arrange too.

x

The idea of this story came from a challenge I read in a passing for a Harry Potter/Temeraire crossover, where someone asked to have Laurence reborn as Harry. "Nah, that doesn't fit at all, even if they are sort of similarly, erm, minded. Harry looks nothing like Laurence," I thought, then I remembered seeing some fanart with Temeraire as a human, and yeah... the idea for this thing was born, this weird cross-dimensional-rebirth-thingy. So, Temeraire!Harry and Laurence!Charlie. I hope it's not too confusing, because sometimes it confuses the heck outta me.

All in all this will have about dozen chapters, maybe more, and will be sort of **slashy **because the way Laurence and Temeraire are. Tv tropes put it pretty nicely. "If it weren't for Temeraire being a dragon, there would be absolutely no question that the series was a romance story between the two." So yeah. My apologies for possible grammar errors.


	2. 51 to 100

**Flying again**

51.

Charlie doesn't much care for his appearance and doesn't mind the burn scars in his neck. He doesn't even mind the fact that his hair grows back in a different colour now, thanks to the healing potion. That however doesn't stop him from taking necessary precautions to avoid further injuries, and he takes into wearing a charmed neck cloth like every other worker in the sanctuary, that would force him to keep breathing even if burns and shock would try to make him choke.

52.

The people of Hogwarts whisper to each other when Harry passes them by and look not to his eyes, but to his forehead. He almost stops pinning his hair back with clips so that they'd stop staring, but he doesn't want them to know that the attention makes him uneasy. What bothers him the most is how they seem to think he is arrogant and boastful just because he wears jewellery. "Just ignore them, they'll settle down," Ron says to him and distracts him by asking help with his studies.

53.

In the dining hall of the dragon caretakers, Charlie hears endless stories of dragons and hatchings and caretakers. He hears about the first dragon reserves and the first dragon tamers, about how hard it was back then without right spells and right methods. He heard about the Dragon Reservation acts all around the world, and how it's illegal now to hunt dragons for their hearts or blood or hide - they're all harvested from naturally deceased beasts now. What he does not hear is what he _wants_ to hear, he knows that much even if he doesn't know what exactly it is that he is waiting to hear.

54.

Of all his fellow first year Ravenclaws, Harry likes Su Li most. They aren't really friends, but he likes her accent and the little things she does differently than others and how she lapses to cursing in Mandarin when her books fall to the floor or she hits her toe to table. One day she can't find a word in English and keeps repeating it in her native tongue only confusing the listeners except for Harry, who happily translates for her much to her shock. Even when she curses and scolds him for not letting her know earlier that there's someone around to whom she can speak _normally_, he still likes her best over all other Ravenclaws.

55.

Most of the work in the reserve is rather gruelling, but Charlie had been expecting it. It's herding cattle and cleaning after the dragons, mending the bars between their caves and making sure the beasts didn't end up killing each other. Sometimes they have to bind dragons down for treatment after they ended up fighting amongst themselves, and it is no easy task to keep a ten ton beast from wringing free, especially when the said beast was immune to most magic the wizards had to use on them. The dragons usually thanked for these treatments with gusts of flames and angry roars, so to say that it is very rewarding work would be lying through one's teeth.

Charlie, however, is perfectly certain that he'd never want any other occupation.

56.

Harry doesn't care for Draco Malfoy at all and finds the blonde wholly unfitting of his name. But he has to be a little grateful when Draco tempts him to grab the broom and chase after him and thus helps him discover the beauty and magnificence that is flying - even in it's odd, aided form. They call him the greatest flier since Charlie Weasley, maybe even better than he was, but Harry is too charmed by the concept of flying to hear the significance.

57.

Charlie watches his first hatching just before Halloween. First in the clutch of new Longhorns cracks the shell slowly, almost cautiously, poking its head out and keening before starting to tear at the shell more vigorously until it cracks completely. As the mother dragon noses the dragonet and ushers him into the shelter of her wings, Charlie can't help but feel that something vital is missing from the process.

58.

Harry misses the Halloween feast, having lost track of time after finding a book about Chinese fairytales, and never hears Quirrell's shocking announcement. What he does hear is the troll's grunts as it makes its way through halls, dragging its club after it. Instinct and anxiety he can't quite explain draws Harry towards the sound. It's a threat, he feels, one that cannot be left alone.

He hasn't used the roar in years, but it's more powerful than ever as it shatters near by windows and knocks the troll out in one loud blast. Harry's jaw aches and his lungs burn and he feels _powerful_ as the troll falls with its ears and nostrils bleeding. He doesn't realise until sometime later that Hermione Granger saw the whole thing from the door of the girl's bathroom.

59.

There is something to be said about tending to a dragonet that was rejected by its mother, Charlie muses while feeding the small Longhorn with pieces of meat. The dragon is small and fragile, the runt of the clutch and unlikely to survive, but there is something special, something important in this. As the dragon chirps and eagerly attacks another strip of meat, Charlie can't shake the feeling that he has done this before.

60.

Hermione never says anything about the roar, but she sits beside him in library and studies with him, helps Ron understand the classes and lodges herself firmly into the bubble of their friendship. Ron is confused but Harry doesn't mind, and sits still as she makes small braids into his hair and binds them with silver thread. When someone criticises Harry or calls him names because of his manners or habits, Hermione is brimstone and acid right along side Ron's more physical anger. Sitting between them makes Harry feel oddly at home.

61.

The little Longhorn lives and grows strong under Charlie's care. He is happy to have saved its life and even happier that the dragon seems somewhat affectionate towards him and does not once use fire on him, but it's a strangely bittersweet feeling. And sometimes, when the dragon comes close for a pat or a treat, he feels oddly guilty, looking around for a jealous rebuke that never comes. Even the fact that his success with the dragonet earns him a permanent spot in the Sanctuary doesn't make the feeling go away.

62.

Harry soars on broom, freer than he has ever been, more at home in air than he has ever felt on ground. The broom tilts and turns, angles left and right and follows his control perfectly, and though he can't shake the feeling of how limited it seems, it is _incredible_. He zips past the other players, circling around the other seeker, dives, stoops and catches the snitch that temptingly glimmers in the sunlight, and wins the game for Ravenclaw.

No one ever finds out how hard professor Quirrell tried to curse his broom throughout the game, to no avail.

63.

Charlie gets often letters from his family members, mostly from his parents but also from Ginny, Percy and Bill. The twins amuse him greatly with their tales from Hogwarts when ever they thought to write. Ron, not being much of a writer didn't bother with it often, but the occasional letter does come, telling about Hogwarts and whining about Slytherins and classes, and explaining about some measure of bewildered awe about his best friend who was weird and somehow amazing at the same time. "Fits Ravenclaw like button on a robe with the way he hoards all things glittery, but damn he can _fly_." Charlie chuckles and smiles, and doesn't think much of it at the time.

64.

Christmas holidays come, and the castle empties. Harry enjoys the peace and quiet with a book and by having great many snowball wars with Ron and his twin brothers while they parents visit their brother in Romania. Harry gets presents and cards and letters - even a sweater from Ron's mother, in shade of bottle green which Harry finds oddly familiar and comforting. Mostly he seems to get great many glittery things, but he certainly doesn't mind - and though the Invisibility Cloak isn't exactly glittery, it does shimmer from certain angle which he likes very much. All in all it's the best and more comfortable Christmas he has ever had.

65.

Charlie is both endeared and embarrassed when his parents decide to spent their Christmas at Longhorn Sanctuary. His mother wrings her hands over his very short hair and new scars and wonders if his younger brothers would lose their freckles too when they'd grow up - Bill certainly hadn't seemed to, so maybe it was just Charlie. In the meanwhile his father pats his shoulder and asks him questions about what he does and is proud when Charlie introduces them to the Longhorn he had saved.

And all the while the future Dragonologist can't shake away the thought of how _strange_ it is to have such a hearty approval from his father for his _animal husbandry_.

66.

Harry finds it by accident while in bout of mischievousness testing the cloak he had gotten and roaming the castle corridors by night. The mirror is beautiful, golden and well made and Harry stares at the frames in admiration for a long, long while before looking at the surface itself. He is taken aback for a moment and then he stares at the image the mirror shows in astonishment.

It is not his own refection, but that of a man in a bottle green uniform from the nineteenth century, with a sword, muskets and rifle and everything. The man smiles down to Harry with open fondness despite the weariness that is deeply rooted to his features, and like in the day Harry found the Principia Mathematica, the boy feels his eyes watering and his throat closing up. This time, though, this time the odd, deep rooted sorrow has gotten a face that would forever represent it for the boy. If only Harry could remember his name…

67.

Of course, his father is a smart man and notices his confusion, asking Charlie to explain in puzzled but still understanding tones, fully willing to listen and explain if he can. "I don't know," Charlie can only say, because despite what his heart says he _knows_ Dragonology is a respectable profession and his father would've been proud of him in any case. Why is it so hard for his heart to understand? "Perhaps I'm just overly anxious."

"As long as you're happy doing something, then I'm happy to see you do it, son. Never doubt that," his father assures, and while Charlie nods, he knows that it will probably take him a while longer to actually believe him.

68.

The headmaster catches Harry staring at the mirror and the man in it one night. He asks what Harry sees, tries to explain it, tries to be gentle about it, but Harry doesn't really understand. How does he know the man, why is he so important, why does Harry's heart bleed when he looks at him? Deepest, desperate desires of one's heart, the headmaster says, and all Harry feels is gut-wrenching sorrow and loneliness. "It does not do the dwell on dreams," Dumbledore says when he ushers the boy away, and Harry is almost relieved when he says the mirror will be removed and he shouldn't expect to see it again.

69.

When his mother asks, when she and his father are about to take a Portkey back to Britain, if he is happy in the sanctuary, Charlie doesn't know what to say. He feels like he is at the right place, like he belongs there, but it's not a content feeling, never has been. He knows he's doing what he's supposed to do, he's doing what he was _born_ to do, and yet it's not quite right. It's all missing something terribly important, like that book he never found. The whole sanctuary, if not the whole wide world, is missing something nameless and very dear.

"Yes," he says finally, and hopes the old longing doesn't show in his face.

70.

Harry sulks for a while, and withdraws to his dormitory, surrounding him with everything he had that shone and comforting himself with the bracelets Hermione had sent for him for Christmas. He thinks of the man for a long while, tries to remember where he had seen him, tries to remember his name… In the end nothing but emptiness comes to him. It threatens to smother him, before Su Li marches into his room and starts scolding him in sharp Mandarin. The language, more than the words, makes him gather himself and force himself up. What would his mother think, he wonders, and only later realises it wasn't Lily Potter he had in mind.

71.

Work returns to normal after his parents leave, and Charlie throws himself to it full heartedly. He doesn't give the odd twinges and feelings any attention now, and instead he concentrates onto the dragons - and to the little Longhorn that has fallen ill and needs his help more. It takes wheedling and teasing to get the little dragon eating through his coughs, and Charlie determinately ignores the déjà vu he feels - that and the sudden, odd fear that it's not just a cold.

72.

Harry reads and plays Quidditch and smothers the memory of the man beneath it all, keeping his mind and his hands busy. He reads ahead and learns Chinese stories and poetry from some of the books Su Li loans him, and learns to braid the little plaits to his hair the way Hermione sometimes does for him. He draws jewellery designs in his free time and comes up with the perfect one, a plate with a pearl in the middle that would rest against his chest. Little by little, even the dreams leave him alone.

73.

The little Longhorn heals, however, and the unspeakable fear unclenches its hold on Charlie's heart. He ignores the other workers who laugh at him for being such a worrywart, waving their teasing away. The aftermath of the anxiety leaves him shaking, though, and makes him buy himself a bottle from near by village and drown the worries, guilt and endless loneliness of his very confused heart with it. Thankfully, in the dragon sanctuary no one minds a little drinking, and they only share spirits and laugh over old stories - and if they can tell that Charlie can't find any solace in the bottom of his glass, they never comment on it.

74.

The school keeps Harry busy too, as the spring term advances. The teachers pile the students with as much homework as they seem to be able to. Harry can hear many complaining about it, but he embraces the distraction full heartedly and gladly helps Ron with his homework to busy himself further. And among the dozens book and equally as many papers and essays, as well as his own personal studies with Arithmancy and mathematics and extra credit paper he was writing for Astronomy, he is wonderfully busy, too busy to bother to think of the mirror for a long while.

75.

Charlie isn't the one to fall into depression and after his single night of heavy drinking he cleans himself up and goes back to work with greater determination than before. Few of the other caretakers suggest that if he is having some sort of homesickness all of sudden, maybe he should visit the village and find himself some lady company for distraction. The very thought makes Charlie sputter and blush and turn away much to the amusement of the others.

76.

Ever since coming to Hogwarts, Harry has enjoyed visiting Hagrid in his hut with his friends. The hut is small and simple but very pleasant regardless, and there is something nice and familiar about Hagrid that made Harry enjoy his visits. However, Harry gets his first negative reply to the request to come over for tea just around Easter. After he has gotten over being slightly offended, he gets very curious about the poorly made up excuse.

77.

"I suppose you will do," Charlie murmurs to himself while checking over the little Longhorn's wing that had been injured in a scuffle with the other dragonets. Calling it little was bit of an understatement, though, as its shoulder was way higher than his head was. "Go on, get out of here," he adds, slapping the dragon's side, and with a rumble it jumps down from the ledge and soars towards its cave. With a sigh, the dragon keeper watches it as it goes. "I suppose you will do," he repeats to himself.

78.

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," Hermione says to the half giant when the egg is revealed, trying to appeal to his common sense. Harry says nothing as she and Ron continue to try and plea the grounds keeper to see sense, and instead stares at the egg itself. It was surprisingly small. He reaches his hand out and runs his fingers along the shell. It is hard, it won't take long until it hatches, he muses, wondering how odd his hand with its bracelets and rings and painted fingernails looks against the shell. It hadn't been like this the last time. Had it?

79.

"We've gotten word," the head of the sanctuary says in solemn tone, speaking to them all. "There's been dragon eggs in the black market again. I know that it probably won't touch us here unless the eggs are found in Romania, but, as usual, I want you to keep your eyes and ears open. If you hear rumours, anything at all… and if you could ask your families, anyone you know who might be able to help, that would be appreciated."

The caretakers all answer in unison and Charlie already thinks of the letters he will write to Bill, his father and some other members of Weasley family who lived abroad. There was probably little they could do, but it was better than none at all.

80.

Harry sneaks into Hagrid's hut between classes and during lunch break and once the class work was done for the day. When Hagrid is there, he merely eyes the egg as they talk over it, but the few times the half-giant heads away to attend to his duties as grounds keeper, Harry stays, kneeling beside the bucketful of sand and wrapping his arms around the egg. "This isn't the best place for you to hatch," he says. "And Hagrid is a bit… careless about this. But I'll make sure it happens properly."

81.

"Does it happen often?" Charlie asks later from an older caretaker as they cast charms over the waste pit.

"Every now and then. They steal the eggs from sanctuaries and reserves and they pass from hand to hand in secret. It's usually a small miracle if we ever hear about them at all," the older caretaker says, frowning. "The few times we do, is when the dragon has hatched and escaped. But usually, they don't live long enough to ever get out of shell. Potioneers don't need them fully developed to use their hearts or blood, after all."

82.

When the hatching starts, Hagrid sends an owl for Harry like he promised. This is more important than school work he decides and skips his history class - no one would notice - in order to head to the hut. There he and Hagrid watch excitedly as the egg shakes and shudders as the dragon inside awakens. Hermione and Ron, who on Hermione's insistence went to Herbology lesson not to cause suspicion, join them not much before the dragon determinately breaks out of the shell.

The dragonet doesn't say a word, only sneezes and as he looks down to her thin body, too big wings, bulging orange eyes, Harry wonders if the dragonet had born mutated. Then Hagrid says that he has plenty of brandy ready for the little creature, and Harry forgets all about possible birth defects.

83.

Dragon harvesting is horrible enough and illegal for good reasons, Charlie knows, but breeding for personal purposes isn't any better because dragon breeding is not something any old enthusiast could do. They tended to treat the eggs wrong, they didn't keep them warm enough or they heated them too much - sometimes they wanted to hurry the hatching along and killed the dragonet in process. And if the dragon got out of shell safely, it was most certainly maltreated during the first week with poor feeding. Most died of hunger within the first few days.

Almost all clutches in sanctuaries are kept in supervised conditions and when the hatching occurs it happens with dragon handlers watching the process cautiously, to make sure that everything goes alright. For weeks afterwards the hatchlings are kept under constant watch to make sure that they get enough to eat, and grow as they should - and for a good reason. One bad misstep during first weeks, and the dragon is forever damaged.

84.

"Absolutely not!" Harry almost roars, standing between Hagrid and the dragonet, who is clicking curiously as she watches the proceedings. "I'm sorry Hagrid, but if you try to feed a drop of alcohol to this hatchling, I will report you to the headmaster or to Minister of Magic himself if I have to! I will not stand by as you try and maim the creature like that! Dragonets eat _meat_, they eat chickens, lambs, cows, hens, deer, they eat even fish if it's just available, but in _no circumstances_ do you feed a dragonet _alcohol_, no more than you feed it to a _new born baby_! Where on Earth do you think a dragon would get alcohol in the wild if their hatchlings really needed it? No, I _will not budge_! Now go and slaughter few chickens for the little one and after she's eaten, _then_ we'll talk."

The others are so taken a back by his anger, that no one notices the face in the window until it's too late.

85.

Though not all books in Hogwarts were wrong about dragons, Charlie remembers very well the ones that were. _Dragon Keeping for Pleasure and Profit_ was one of them - a horrible, ancient book for those who had used to tame dragons for entertainment or potions ingredients in the dark ages. He remembers reading with some horror about how the book stated, like it was an obvious fact, that dragonets would be fed bucketful of alcohol every half an hour for the day and then every third hour for the following week. This, according to the book, guaranteed the dragon's "proper" growth.

In reality the dragons that survived that that sort of first week didn't do it without losing their minds completely. But then, that was what most breeders of the time had preferred.

86.

Harry visits Hagrid even more often now that the dragon has hatches, and swears him almost hourly to keep his word not to feed the dragon any alcohol. The groundskeeper has learned his lesson though, and feeds the dragonet meat instead - and she grows in result at a pace that alarms Hermione and Ron, but which makes Harry frown. She isn't growing _fast_ enough. In a week, she has only tripled in size - something she should've done within first two days. The hut is crowding the dragon, and chicken's and rats are nowhere near a proper diet. "She can't stay here," Harry says, displeased. The dragon's silence worries him as well. It only croons and chirps and occasionally clicks, but doesn't say a word. "This hut isn't doing her any favours."

"And there is Malfoy to consider," Ron murmurs. "Who knows why he hasn't gone to the professors yet, but I bet he will soon. We should let him - uh, her - go." Letting the dragonet go, however, is out of the question. She isn't strong enough to manage hunting on her own, and letting a wild, possibly brain damaged dragon run wild so near a school of children does not please Harry any more than seeing her in the hut does.

So another plan is made.

87.

The letter from his youngest brother baffles and amuses Charlie, but no where near as much as it worries him. Illegally hatched dragon in _Hogwarts_, not a half a month after the sanctuary was informed of trade? What were the odds of that? He frowns and contemplates the situation for a moment. Ron wants to get the dragon out of Hogwarts without anyone knowing - a wise decision considering how the dragon had been acquired and how long it had been kept secret. What bemuses him the most is the PS note written in beautifully elaborate cursive that most certainly did not belong to Ron or Hagrid.

"In the case You will agree to this no doubt troublesome task, I will beseech You, sir, to come personally. I cannot in clear conscience hand over the Dragonet to an unknown individual or individuals, even ones approved by You."

88.

Harry breathes a little easier when Ron informs him that his brother has agreed, and that he will come the following Saturday and that they should meet him with the dragonet on the top of the astronomy tower. The wait is excruciating, however, with Draco Malfoy looming about and jeering at them, and the dragon growing still. It is a well behaved creature, considering its circumstances, but any moment it might decide to become a handful. Dragonets rarely did as others wanted them to do, after all.

Like suspected, the dragonet acts up and bites Ron before Saturday and he has to go to the hospital wing, leaving Harry to manage the dragon alone with Hermione. Still, even with difficulty of handing the dragon without third pair of hands, and with the threat of Malfoy looming about, Harry isn't about to give up. It's the life of a dragon at stake, after all.

89.

Charlie lands on the tower rooftop with a friend who had offered to help, feeling both anxious and oddly exhilarated. It's been almost a year since he's seen Hogwarts, and the memory hasn't faded much. The place still feels awkward to him, but it's comfortably distant awkwardness of a person disconnected now.

He forgets all about it, when a door opens and two students come out. The first is a very anxious girl who offers them awkward smile. The second is a black haired boy, who is walking next to a nervous dragonet, one arm wound around the Ridgeback's neck, other hand stroking its nose soothingly.

The boy looks up, and Charlie feels dizzy with sudden rush of _rightness_.

90.

All the questions Harry meant to ask and all the cautionary methods he had meant to demand seem to vanish from his head, along with the anxiety over the dragonet's health. Wordless, he stares at the young man before, wavering between _knowing him_ and not knowing him. He looks _so_ familiar that it knocks the breath out of Harry.

Hermione ends up asking the questions and explaining the worries. Harry, thorough the hurried process of latching nervous Norberta with a harness between two brooms for transportation, can't manage a single word. Only when the other of the two elder wizards nudges the other, saying they have to go, does he say anything - because he knows there won't be another chance in a while, maybe never. "Do I know you?"

91.

"You might, but I think I'd remember you if we had met," Charlie answers, taking in the dark teal eyes, the excess of jewellery, the oddly elegant posture, the way the young wizard holds his hands, his shoulders, his whole being. Even if this youth hadn't been Harry Potter and thus famous, Charlie definitely would've remembered meeting him. But he knows where the question comes from - because he feels it too. It's almost overwhelming, how familiar the boy seems to him.

But there is no time. "We need to go," he says, awkward and apologetic and oddly heartbroken. He feels almost disappointed when the boy frowns, nods, and steps back. "Take care," Charlie says, not able to figure what else to say in the short time they have, and they take off. He looks back over his shoulder as they head away from the castle and towards the edge of the wards, and feels a spike of guilt for not saying anything more.

92.

"Harry, Harry! We need to go," Hermione says, shaking him until Harry snaps out of it, and realises where they are. It seems for a moment like something had drained the colour off the world - everything had seemed so bright a moment ago - but it's only the night, making things dark. Or maybe it's the odd turning of his stomach that makes it seem so.

They hurry away, with Harry still thinking about the man, who had to be Charlie Weasley. He is so deep in thought, that he doesn't notice Argus Filch until the man murmurs. "Well well well. We are in trouble." But even then, Harry doesn't much care.

93.

In the Sanctuary no one asks where the little Ridgeback came from. They only tend to her, check her for injuries, see that she hasn't been maltreated, estimate that there was some malformation but there is also a good chance it will clear out over time. Charlie sighs with relief when he hears no alcohol has been given to the dragon, and then draws back from the process to think things through.

But no answer comes to him, Harry Potter's face and jewellery adorned figure remains burned in his memory and he cannot think of a reason why he feels so much remorse for not staying at Hogwarts.

94.

McGonagall jumps into conclusions, having heard one story from Malfoy and making her own up on the spot when she finds they have been out during the night as well and they are given detention and they loose enormous amount points. Hermione shivers and shakes and looks miserable, but Harry can't force his mind back to order enough to really be concerned about things such as points. What was the use of them anyway? It wasn't like the one who got most of them got a _reward_.

"How many points have I won over the year?" he asks when Ravenclaws glower at him and try to shove him around. They don't seem to care, but then neither does he really. He turns his thoughts back to Charlie Weasley, and tries to remember where he had seen him before.

95.

"How can you know someone without having actually ever met them?" Charlie muses to himself while watching the little Ridgeback eating ferociously, its nose covered in blood as it dig around the sheep's stomach. "And why does it feel like I've known him forever?"

96.

The day before the detention, Harry goes through Hogwarts' year books and the book of Gryffindor Quidditch team that the captains apparently maintained. He finds five pictures of Charlie Weasley, three of them the same one copied, one of them poor in quality - but one was good enough to see the elder wizards features. None of them help, Charlie looks stranger when he's younger with his red hair and freckles that Harry is sure he no longer has. But when Ron shows him a picture he had gotten from his parents after Christmas of their visit to Romania, it clicks into place.

Charlie Weasley looks much like the man in the mirror would've, had he been dozen years younger.

97.

Feeling little embarrassed, Charlie looks through the scant few letters he had gotten from Ron and rereads the brief, formerly meaningless sentences about Harry Potter. He is a Ravenclaw, the letters say, a bit weird, but nice - and smart as hell. He speaks several languages and likes everything shiny - wears jewellery all the time and is especially fond of his rings. He reads Arithmancy on his spare time for fun, fact which Ron writes somewhat incredulously.

Even all this nonsensical information seems familiar.

98.

Hagrid leads them into the forest for their detention, Harry, Hermione and Malfoy following after him. They are meant to find a creature that had been harming unicorns, and whilst Hermione and Malfoy shiver with fear, Harry looks ahead excitedly, and for first time in days can almost forget Charlie Weasley and concentrate to the present. "Aren't you nervous?" Hermione demands to know under her breath. Harry glances at her confusedly. Why would he be?

They find a trail and split to follow it to both directions. Hermione and Hagrid go one way, Harry and Malfoy another.

99.

"She's starting to look better," the head caretaker says, looking over the Ridgeback. "She's gaining weight and the sides are expanding just like they ought to. She should be able to start flying in week or two, if this keeps up."

Charlie is both relieved and little confused about why he's telling that to him, before he realises that he had been frowning at the dragonet while once more thinking about he odd boy his heart though he knew. "That's good to know," he offers awkwardly and wonders if the Ravenclaw would like to know as well.

100.

Malfoy stumbles away in fright, away from the unicorn and the hooded figure over it before crying out and springing into run. Harry keeps his eyes on the figure and holds his ground and as it rises up and starts to come towards him, he takes a deep breath that makes his ribs ache. The roar echoes through the unnaturally silent forest like a cannon blast, but though the hooded figure takes it full to the face, it manages somehow stagger back and then run away from him and from the dying unicorn.

When the centaur finds him, Harry has broken the unicorn's neck and closed its eyes, saving it from slow and painful death. "Dragon childe," the centaur calls him, and doesn't seem at all surprised by what he had done.

In the following day, Professor Quirrell's classes are cancelled due to him having fallen ill. Harry thinks nothing of it.

x

Oddly enough, my favourite part about this chapter is Charlie's doubts about his father. Anyway, like I said in the first chapter, this is going to ble slashy. But I guess I ought to say that it's going to be mostly very platonic type of slash with no real sexuality involved - though, with several bucketloads worth of cuddling. Eventually. I thank you all for you comments, and I hope that the second chapter lives to the expectations of the first one. My apologies for possible grammar errors.


	3. 101 to 150

**Flying Again**

101.

Charlie ponders somewhat indecisively about if he should write a letter to Hogwarts for a long while. Just a little short letter, telling his brother that the Ridgeback is doing alright and would be healthy in a week or two, once she would get some weight to it. Maybe he would ask his brother how he and his friends were doing…

102.

"Can I see it?" Harry asks as casually as he can, and then accepts the letter from Ron. It's very general, just informing them that the dragonet is getting better and would be okay, telling them to let Hagrid know. There was a little question about Harry and Hermione at the end that makes the Ravenclaw's heart jump, but he hides it as well as he can. Within two minutes he has read the leather three times through and memorised it carefully.

103.

Ron writes back, thanking for the information and explaining that they had gotten caught and that Harry and Hermione had gotten to detention - and that is about it. It's irritating to realise that is about all he could really ask for, at this point. He _could_ write a letter to Harry Potter himself, but that would be too forward and he didn't know how the boy would receive it - and somehow, getting no reply at all seems like something he isn't sure he can bear.

So he goes back to work as normal - and if he goes through the letters every night and rereads the postscript in the one asking for his help, no one is to know.

104.

Time drags on slowly and painfully, loaded with school work, as Harry realises that the pictures in year books and what ever he hears from Ron are about all he can find out about Charlie. He does seriously ponder on writing the man a letter, asking about the little dragon, but that would be too casual considering that they had met only once. And surely it would be a bit strange to write to his best friend's elder brother like that, even if he _is_ worried about the dragonet.

105.

On a trip to the near by village, Charlie catches a glimpse of a jewellery store, and out of whimsy goes inside. As the store clerk tries to sell him goods, asking if he's looking for something similar, perhaps a watch or something nice to his girlfriend, Charlie looks around absently. It's easy to tell that the village is very much aware of the Longhorn Sanctuary - great many of the jewelleries are dragon-inspired. There are rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, everything with some sort of dragon insignia in them.

What catches his attention, however, is a pair of silver jewellery meant to wrap around the back of the ear. The creator had apparently tried to go for a dragon's wing type of effect, but they looked more like fins which was probably why no one had bought them. Looking down to them, Charlie gets a sudden mental image and can't help but think how well they would fit Harry Potter.

106.

The end exams start soon, and then there is no time to write much anything but them and homework. Harry might've been a bit distracted between the tests, but he takes his studies too seriously not to pay attention to them, and he throws himself at the vigour's of the exams fully, until after a long potion's practical examination, it is all over. Ron is the loudest about his relief, as they relax in the yard afterwards and spend the rest of the day lazing off.

"I don't know about you, but I'm _ready_ for summer hols, you know," the redhead says, stretching as he lays on the ground. "I've been thinking, by the way. Maybe you two could come over this summer," he suggests. "I've been writing about you to mum, she'd love to meet you."

Hermione declines - she and her parents are going abroad - but Harry accepts it happily. He can just barely keep himself from asking whether Charlie would be there, and tells himself firmly that it would be pleasant experience even if he weren't, despite the hope springing inside his chest.

107.

"Well, we are taking in new students for the summer, so I don't mind," the head of the sanctuary says when Charlie pleads for some time off. "And you have been working pretty hard the time you've been there, so it is warranted. Mind if I ask you what you intend to do on your holiday?"

"Visit home," Charlie answers and very determinately ignores his slight private embarrassment. "It's been a while, after all."

108.

Later, Harry can't really say what happened.

Professor Quirrell has one of the Ravenclaws to deliver him a message, asking him to visit his office. Once there, the professor rants insanely about a stone, and the dark lord, and Dumbledore, and how was it that a half-blooded wizard - a mere baby at the time - could possibly have a protection against a killing curse. It all comes out of nowhere for Harry and he can only stare silently as the man unwraps his turban to reveal abomination, that asks for more answers to questions Harry has no idea how to answer.

"How? How is it that you can create an impact with your voice alone without needing a wand? How is it that no spells work on you?" the abomination demands to know. "The broom never budged, no curses ever touched you - _how is it possible_?"

Harry, who had never noticed such a thing, has no answer to give.

109.

Charlie says his farewells to the not-so-little Longhorn he had tended to adolescence, and then to the Ridgeback, who is starting to look much better now, though it still had ways to go. He copies some statistics about the dragons' growth and development to show to his brother - and hopefully to others - and after making sure the Ridgeback would be well taken care off, he took his bags and got ready to return to Britain.

110.

"Sir, I really do not know," Harry answers to the headmaster after waking up in the hospital wing. He can't quite believe that the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was dead, but having heard it from three different sources it is finally starting to sink in. The man who had out of the blue ranted at him was dead - and he was the last person to see him alive. "The last thing I remember is professor Quirrell… or the thing that was in him, pointing a wand at me."

"Hmm…" the headmaster says, looking thoughtful and confused and oddly satisfied at the same time. "Best not to dwell on it, my dear boy. Professor Quirrell was a troubled man harangued by magic's best left in darkness. I think it's safe to say that what ever happened to him was greatly of his own doing."

Harry readily accepts that. He doesn't really want to think too deeply about the fact the spell he had been knocked out by had been the same emerald green fire he saw sometimes in his nightmares.

111.

The Burrow hasn't changed much, Charlie muses as he unpacks his things in his and Bill's room. Still crowded and messy and very homely - and tad bit strange to him, despite him having been raised there. He smiles absently to himself while looking around the room and wonders why it is that despite all the fondness he has for the place, all the warm sentiments he has, all the good memories… it has never felt like home to him.

112.

The year at Hogwarts comes to a close without any further incidents. Professor Quirrell death stirs the school some, but not as much as one would think - the school has seen too many weird things to be truly shocked by a death of teacher. And of course, the Defence Against the Dark Arts position has been cursed for a while, so some had even been expecting something to happen.

In the end, the students pack their things, and make their way to the train once more. In compartment shared with Hermione and Ron, Harry curls his arms around his battered copy of Principia Mathematica, and looks forward to the summer without giving Quirrell or Voldemort any other thought.

113.

The most disturbing thing about home, Charlie soon finds, is how much his little sister's adoration for one Harry Potter had increased. It immediately rubs him the wrong way, which makes him soon after feel rather uneasy about himself. For years he and the rest of the family have been greatly amused by Ginny's love for the stories of the Boy-Who-Lived, finding it all charming in the way only little girls could be.

Now hearing her tell all about what Ron had written in his letters, and about how she looks forward to meeting Harry, about how she wants to ask his autograph and talk to him… now it all seems very awkward. And more than a little worrisome.

114.

The Dursleys are in a foul mood the first few days, but Harry doesn't bother to concern himself with it, and despite uncle Vernon's bellowing he has none of it when the man demands he put his trunk to the cupboard to be locked up. "Do stop being preposterous," he merely says and waves the man's objections aside. It isn't pleasant in any way, but it is nothing new. He has his books to distract him and now that he has access to muggle world once more he buys great many new ones on mathematics, physics and philosophy and happily holes himself up in his room with them.

He does it mostly in order to distract himself from the upcoming stay with the Weasleys and from the inane hope that Charlie Weasley might be present. He reads, does his homework, reads some more, and redoes his homework - and what little time he has left afterwards he uses to sort through his treasures. It ends up working so well, that it takes him some time to notice that he isn't getting any letters from his friends despite all the ones he sent out.

115.

"So, it is alright that Harry comes over?" Ron asks over breakfast, looking from their mother to their father. "I was going to write him a new letter and ask when would be good for him. I don't think he got the last one…"

"Yes, of course it is alright, dear. He seemed like a nice boy when we met in the platform," their mother agrees with a nod, and Charlie hides his private delight at the thought.

116.

Musing about how useful it would be if he had an owl of his own, Harry wanders around the small park and tries to catch a glimpse of any wild owls that could carry his letters for him. It has been weeks now and he still hasn't gotten a single letter neither from Hermione nor Ron, and he has yet to get replies for the ones he had sent. It is starting to worry him, and he finds that he no longer to trusts the Post Office of Diagon Alley that should have converted his muggle letters and sent them on through Owl Post. The office is obviously loosing his mail somewhere in the process.

"Could you kindly take this for me?" Harry asks as he finally finds a small tawny owl, scowling down on him from a tree branch. "You can have this bit of bacon if you do," he offers, and soon enough the owl is on the way, leaving Harry hoping that it at least would reach its destination.

117.

"I'm telling you, there's something wrong," Ron was muttering to the twins when Charlie walked into the living room. "Harry _loves_ writing; he wouldn't _not_ write me back. And even if he hadn't gotten any them, he would've sent his own - he wouldn't have just… And Hermione says she hasn't gotten any letters either!"

Charlie only barely manages to cover his sudden start. "Maybe you should try calling him," he says to hide his reaction. "He lives with Muggles, right? They should have a phone then. You could use a payphone in the village." Ron brightens at the idea and mere half an hour later Charlie is escorting his little brother to the muggle village to attempt it. It takes a phonebook and bit of magic to find the right number, but they manage it quickly enough.

118.

"You don't need to _shout_, Ron!" Harry laughs into the receiver after snatching it from his uncle, who is purple with anger. "Yes, I am fine… no, nothing is wrong that I know of… Letters? Yes, I haven't been getting any either, neither from you or Hermione. Maybe they are being intercepted somehow? … of course I still want to come, I've been looking forward to it. Only, I don't know how I would get there…"

Then the speaker in the end of the line changes, and a warm, _familiar_ voice assures him, "I can help with that. Could you tell me the address? I can come and get you." Harry is so shocked by the sound of Charlie Weasley's voice that he barely manages an answer.

119.

_What the hell am I doing_ Charlie wonders as he Apparates to the shadowed street corner of Wisteria Walk. He tugs on his sweater collar, and glances down to himself to see that he is presentable and feels oddly naked without the charmed neck cloth. But there is no time to worry about that now, so he glanced around and heads up the Privet Drive, checking houses as he goes until he finds right one.

Harry's thin aunt opens the door and greets him cheerfully - and then looks like she'd very much like to slam the door to his face when he asks for the boy. Harry, however, seems to have sense of hearing fit for a dragon, because he comes rushing down the stairs, breathless, wide eyed, and still somehow elegant thorough it all - and so thoroughly jewelled that he'd be right at home at some royal court of old. The familiarity of their first meeting strikes Charlie immediately and it takes him a moment to find his voice. "Ready to go then, Harry?"

120.

"Yes!" Harry answers and then realises, "No, wait, my trunk!" and hurries back upstairs, flushing from head to toe. Thankfully his trunk is packed and ready to go, but checking it gives him a moment to kick himself for acting like a fool, before taking the trunk back downstairs and facing the elder wizard with a sheepish smile. "I'm ready now."

"Do you need to say good byes?" Charlie asks, smiling down to him.

Harry glances at aunt Petunia, who is staring at him like she couldn't believe he was still there. "No, not really."

"Let's go, then," Charlie says, offering his hand. "I'll Apparate both of us to Ottery St. Catchpole. Just hold onto your trunk, and it will come along." Without hesitation or any consideration for aunt Petunia's outraged expression, Harry immediately slides his fingers among the man's bigger, calloused ones, and trusts him with his life.

121.

Though his mother is not quite happy about Harry's abrupt appearance, and she scolds Charlie for his impulsive actions - weren't they just supposed to visit the village to _call_ the boy, not _get him_ - the Dragonologist can't really feel guilty. Harry certainly doesn't mind as he stares the Burrow curiously, and Ron seems to be happy to have him there along with the twins - even Molly Weasley relents under the boy's odd, fey-like charm. The only one who seemed to have true difficulty was poor Ginny was beside herself with her idol around.

Overall Charlie is satisfied as he watches from the side as Ron leads Harry upstairs to show his room, and feels oddly at ease. For the first time since he can remember, Burrow seems to be missing nothing.

122.

As Ron shows him his Chudley Cannons posters and Harry gets mesmerised by the glossy golden outlines on the moving figurines, he is constantly aware of Charlie Weasley, even though the man is two floors down from him. At first it is very distracting, to be so aware of someone, but he gets used to it and it becomes as comforting as it is bewildering. But still, it is so very strange, and Harry can't help but consider the man with confusion and wonder.

Who is Charlie Weasley, why does he feel so important to him - and why does he look so much like the man in the mirror?

123.

"Why all the jewellery, if you don't mind me asking?" Charlie's father asks over the dinner, looking at their young guest curiously - and for a good reason. Harry has apparently felt a need for more for the dinner, and has put on extra rings and bracelets and pair of earrings that jingle when he moves his head.

"I think they look nice," the boy answers, apparently completely unaware of the fact that boys generally didn't wear so many ornaments. "Don't they?" he adds uncertainly and for some reason turns to Charlie, like thinking he was the perfect judge.

"I think they look wonderful," Charlie answers awkwardly and flushes red when most of his family look at him strangely.

124.

Later that night, Harry finds that he cannot enjoy his usual evening delight of reading. Ron falls asleep earlier than Harry usually does, and he can't turn on the light of his room without rudely waking his friend. So instead Harry takes his favourite book and hesitantly ventures down the stairs and to the living room.

"Can't sleep, Harry?" Mr. Weasley asks from where he sits, reading the day's newspaper. He and Charlie seem to be the last ones awake. "Do you want to read? Come on and sit down. There's plenty of room."

Harry takes the seat beside Charlie and feeling more at home than he ever had felt anywhere, he opens the book.

125.

"Can I see that?" Charlie asks with odd feeling churning in his stomach, and then accepts the book Harry had been reading. It's old, worn, ragged - very much like most books in their house, but most definitely not theirs. _Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica_, the cover says. "What is it about?"

"Mathematics," Harry answers. "Muggle Arithmancy, except with logic instead of magic."

"Ah," Charlie muses, opening the book gently. It seems familiar to him and somehow he already knows what page it starts from. As he leafs through the pages, he is somehow distantly certain that he has found the book he searched for years - and that he most likely would never understand a word it said.

Without a second thought, Charlie starts reading out loud from the muggle book, receiving a strange look from his father and delighted one from Harry. After a moment the boy scoots a little closer to see the text as Charlie reads it and stays there, leaning to the elder wizard's shoulder, until he falls asleep.

126.

Along the following week Harry learns about de-gnoming, about farming and taking care of chickens, that Molly Weasley has a crush on some author and that Ginny has a crush on him, and that Charlie has a very pleasant voice and having him read Principia Mathematica is much nicer than reading it himself. After he cautiously approaches the Dragonologist on the second night at the Burrow with the book, it becomes a set conclusion to his days at the crowded house.

"Are you certain we have not met before?" Harry asks, lightly dozing against the elder wizard's shoulder as they conclude another part of the book.

"Fairly certain," Charlie answers with a warm smile. "And in the same time, I'm not sure at all."

127.

They celebrate Harry's birthday with a hastily made cake much to the boy's delight, and Charlie is thoroughly amused by how the boy is more awed by the wrappings of his gifts and the golden and silver yarns they had been tied with, rather than the presents themselves - unless they were golden and silver as well, or books. Charlie himself gave the boy the silver fin-like ear-wraps he had bought from Romania, and he has hard time hiding his smugness when the boy rushes to the mirror to put them on, swearing he'll wear them _forever._

Charlie had been right, too. The ear-wraps fit the boy perfectly.

128.

"Does he read to you _every night_?" Ron asks with shock when Harry says he will go downstairs and discovers why. "No, no, I don't mind," the redhead assures. "But aren't you a bit old to be read to? Actually," he starts before Harry can object, and gives him a look. "Never mind."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry asks and fiddles with the left ear-wrap self consciously.

"Well, he's always been a bit weird and you're a bit weird, so it kind of makes sense in a weird way," Ron says, shaking his head. That, Harry decides later on, the rudest nice thing someone has ever said to him.

129.

"Tell me about dragons?" Harry asks when Charlie finishes another section of Principia Mathematica. The question takes the elder wizard aback a little, and he turns to the boy with odd incredulity. Shouldn't he know more about them than he ever would?

130.

It seems perfectly natural for Harry to reach out and take Charlie's hand to his when they go to visit Diagon Alley to buy new school books for the following. It's perfectly normal to drag him to the very crowded Flourish and Blotts to see if they can find some interesting books. The others trail after them with amused confusion, but don't seem too bothered about it - and Charlie just laughs and follows and hands Harry the books from the shelves too high for him to reach.

When a man there calls Harry's name and a reporter tries to drag him into the front for a picture, Charlie steps into the way with a severe expression and wand in hand. It seems to come as naturally for him, as holding his hand came for Harry.

131.

Despite the incident in the bookstore - which had turned very nearly into a public spectacle with his father and Lucius Malfoy very nearly getting into a fistfight - the excursion to Diagon Alley ends up being a pleasant one. Charlie is content, following Harry from store to store and watching the boy marvel over new things. The amount of money Harry spends at the jeweller makes Charlie pale a little, but after having glanced the boy's vault, he isn't too worried about him over spending.

In the end, Charlie shows Harry a much more quieter bookstore that sells second hand books, and watches with odd nostalgia how the boy excitedly selects a pile of Arithmancy books.

132.

In the last night of the summer holidays, Harry stays up too late, sitting next to Charlie who reads him the final pages of Principia Mathematica in solemn - and slightly confused - voice. "Do you want me to read the appendix?" the man asks, turning the page once he is done with the chapter about Newton's system of the world.

"It is alright," Harry answers leaning his cheek to his shoulder and sighing. He is going to miss this, he knows, in Hogwarts. He is silent for a long while, and after a moment Charlie closes the book and wraps his arm around the boy's shoulders. Harry sighs again, nuzzling his cheek to his robes. "Can I write to you?" the younger wizard asks quietly. "From Hogwarts, I mean?"

"As much as you like," Charlie says with a warm chuckle.

133.

In the next day, Charlie watches from the side as Harry meticulously dons his many pieces of jewellery and makes him self more than presentable the train trip to Hogwarts, whilst the rest of the house rushes about in order to get last minute packing done. Harry is oddly enough finished before anyone else, his jewellery chiming and jingling as he and Charlie take his trunk to the car. They sit next to each other in the back seat for the journey, hands entwined in natural intimacy that no longer seems to bother the other Weasleys. Harry's grip is tight, perhaps too tight, and Charlie is sure he will feel the press of his rings against his skin even hours afterwards. He doesn't much mind, though.

Their goodbyes in the platform are brief and silent as Harry hugs him tightly and then runs away to the train, making it brutally short and painful like tearing of a band-aid. As Charlie watches with his parents while the train jerks to movement, feeling oddly hollow again, he is completely unaware of the magical block that had appeared onto the barrier between platforms, only to dissolve under Harry's touch.

134

"He's got a crush," Ron cheerfully explains when Hermione asks why Harry is so silent. The Ravenclaw can barely keep himself from sputtering in outrage as the redhead explains with easy tones that Harry would no doubt be sulking for a while about being separated from Charlie. "He was following Charlie like lost puppy all summer. Makes kind of sense when you think about it - Charlie is a dragon tamer, and Harry's sort of like a dragon with a horde of sparkly glittery things. So if Harry would get crush on someone, it would be someone like Charlie."

"I have no such thing!" he denies once he finally manages to find his voice, and hits Ron with a book while Hermione stares at them in confusion and astonishment, and darkly frowning Ginny slinks away from the compartment.

135.

Without Harry, Charlie's reasons for staying in Britain diminish immensely, and he begins looking forward to the return to Romania. He is already looking forward to the letters and chance of writing his own - he would tell Harry of the stories he hears there, about dragons and their caretakers and such, he's sure Harry would enjoy them. However, before he leaves, his father sits him down for a talk he doesn't yet know will affect his future greatly.

"What, exactly, do you think of that boy?" Arthur Weasley asks seriously. "I am not judging you, Charlie, I know you're an honourable man, more so than all of your other brothers combined, you've always been like that. But you are an adult whilst he is still a child. And a blind man could see how close you two already are."

Charlie feels unease and shame and embarrassment, and too many other emotions to name, and can't for the life of him figure an answer. "I would never cause Harry any harm," he says finally, feeling it's a very poor answer indeed. "Not physically, spiritually, mentally nor any other conceivable way. I would rather die." He is little shaken by just how much he means it.

His father stares at him silently, and then nods, looking satisfied. "You better not say that to him," he says and smiles. "I think that boy wouldn't take it well."

136.

Harry writes his first letter to Charlie the first night in Hogwarts, telling about the feast and the new professor taking over the Defence Against the Dark Arts. "… I have read his Books and find there to be much Disparity between his recollections about his encounter with Dragons in the Peruvian Sanctuary and what I've heard from You and read from other Books, and I do not put much trust in his advices about how to deal with Vampires and Trolls. However I do find the books quite Entertaining to read as Fiction, as Professor Lockhart has no doubt a great Skill with writing a Story - and I must say, his robes are quite nice…"

137.

The letter catches Charlie in Romania, not half a day after he settled back to his room. Harry's writing is, not surprisingly, very elegant and his hand so beautiful, that when Charlie's roommate catches a sight of the letter, he understandably thinks it's from a woman or magician of elder generation, when finer penmanship was still mandatory in most magic schools. Charlie shakes his head and rereads the lengthy letter before setting to write his whole lot less elegant reply. He already knows that their correspondence would no doubt be quick and busy and entertain him nearly daily thorough the following months.

138.

Despite his fine golden robes, Harry finds he does not much like Gilderoy Lockhart after man comments on his usual jewellery and says that, "Moderation is the key, Harry, my boy!" and suggests he would wear little less "trinkets" for his next class.

Hunting for pixies had been fun, though.

139.

"She's coming along nicely," the head caretaker says when Charlie goes to see Norberta the Norwegian Ridgeback. "Still has some trouble with her wings - they're still a bit too large compared to the rest of her - but give it a month or two and she'll grow to be more proportionate and should have no more troubles."

"That's good to hear," Charlie nods, watching as the female dragon flying in haphazard manner over the feeding grounds before swooping down to catch a cow. While looking over her eating, he wonders if he ought to get a camera to take some pictures for Harry - and Hagrid too, of course. The sanctuary photographs the dragons often, but the pictures tend to be about their wings and tails and measures, not about what they did.

140.

"Oh, pictures? I'd love to!" Harry says excitedly when one shy first year Gryffindor asks, wondering what his jewellery would look like in a photo. Mirror only showed so much. "I would like copies of them - of course, I would pay for them too. Only, I want to change my clothes and touch up my hair, so would you mind if we did it a little later, maybe after classes? Oh, and I'd like pictures of Ron and Hermione too, I haven't got any," he adds, and thinks about Charlie. He would've liked a good, recent picture of the man too. He decides to ask for one in the next letter.

141.

No one could say that it was strange to put up a picture of your little brother, right? Charlie muses about it absently while hanging the picture of two second year Gryffindor and one Ravenclaw to his wall. Harry smiles brightly up to him with his hands almost possessively around Ron's and Hermione's shoulders, his eyes wide and sun making his numerous necklaces and earrings glint. No, he decides. It's not strange at all.

142.

Harry pins pictures of dragons to the wall above his bed, surrounding them with golden and silver yarns and gluing little golden stars to the corners. The other boys in his dormitory say that it was wrong to surround something as cool as dragons with something so girly, but Harry disagrees - and so seem the dragons. Picture of a young Romanian Longhorn is especially fond of his little stars, and could be seen nuzzling his cheek against them every now and then.

Charlie's picture seems a little embarrassed about them and about the other decorations Harry frames his picture with - but he dutifully stays in his frame, waving at Harry from next to one Norwegian Ridgeback.

143.

One of the dragons gets injured in a fight with a bigger beast over who got the biggest cow in the herd. After the dragons had been separated, the smaller dragon has to be bound down to be inspected and fixed up. Charlie, who isn't particularly good at healing dragons yet, sits by the dragon's head that has been forced against the ground, and strokes his hand across the dragon's nose, murmuring soothing things to it, explaining about what they were doing, telling him it would be over soon and that he'd be better for it.

"You're probably just confusing the poor beast, Charlie. It can't understand you, you know," says one of the new interns, giving him somewhat incredulous look. Charlie smothers the urge to glare at him, and keeps his attention at the dragon. Of _course_ it can understand him.

144.

"… perhaps it makes me foolish, but I have always felt that way and I simply cannot change the way I feel. Dragons for me have never been the dumb beasts most people consider them to be," Charlie's letter says, as Harry greedily takes in the now familiar, stocky script. "Though, I suppose, one could argue by saying that if dragons could understand us, why do they act the way they do, why do they behave like feral monsters? That is not the right question at all. After all, _why would they_?"

145.

"… indeed. At this point the fear and anger towards Wizards has no doubt been Bred into the Dragon Species. Su Li, who is a Ravenclaw from my year, however tells me that there are still Rumours that there is a Hidden Breed of Dragons in China that can Talk. It is in one of the Story Books that she loaned me, as well…" Harry's letter says in his elegant hand, telling about the fairytales of a Golden Emperor - a Chinese dragon of this secret breed. Charlie reads with amusement, fondness and odd sensation of déjà vu. It's like he's heard about the tale from somewhere before.

146.

Harry is on the way back from the library late one night when he hears it the first time. "No, no… not this way…" a voice whispers in the wall, and he stops to listen, head tilted to the side. "Away… another way, another way…" the voice hisses and fades away, leaving Harry confused and oddly tense.

147.

Out of whimsy, Charlie takes one of Harry's letters out one night - one to which the boy has written one of the many Chinese dragon tales he has apparently memorised. The dragons hiss and snarl at him in warning when he enters their area of the sanctuary, but they keep their distance, knowing to be cautious of wizards. Fully willing to trust them not to kill him, Charlie sits down on a rock, and starts reading the story, first in English and then in Romanian in clear, carrying voice so that even the furthest dragons can hear him.

The dragons are silent by the time he finishes.

148.

"How many times have you heard it now?" Hermione asks worriedly when Harry tells about the whispers in the walls. "Three times? And it always the same?"

"Yeah," Harry agrees, shaking his head with confusion and slight concern. "I'm starting to feel sorry for it, whatever it is. I think that it is trapped in the castle."

149.

Charlie has gotten so good at ignoring what the other workers at the sanctuary think about him and his more sentimental attitude towards dragons, that he doesn't even notice that people are acknowledging the effect he has on the dragons. The change is so slight that he himself doesn't notice it before the head caretaker sits him down and asks him what he did, why is it that while the dragons snarl and hiss and try to even maim the other caretakers, none of them seemed try to harm Charlie.

Charlie doesn't know what to say and in the end says nothing. He doesn't know why, but the idea of the other caretakers trying to go for a same sort of accord with the beasts makes him uneasy.

150

When Flich's cat is found petrified with the horrible message of the chamber written next to him, the whole schools tries to find more about the Chamber. Hermione tells Harry she even asked Professor Binns about it during class, and so did many others after her. "Most myths have some basis in facts, don't they?" she muses as they sit in the back of the library, each completing their assorted school assignments. "I wonder what's the fact behind the myth of the chamber, or what the actual story might be…"

"It's not that interesting," Harry answers without looking up from the book about magical effects, trying to find what could cause petrification. "According to legend, all the Founders added their secret rooms into the castle. There is the Room of Requirement or Ravenclaw, the Foyer of Finding of Hufflepuff and the Antechamber of Audacity of Gryffindor. Chamber of Secrets is also called the Chamber of Clandestine. Or so stories would have us believe." He glances up as silence answers him. "What?" he asks, when Hermione stares at him in shock. "It's in the Myths and Mysteries of Hogwarts. I read it last year."

Shaking his head, he goes back to the book, wondering if Charlie might know something.

x

More togetherness :D And suspicions of illicit relationships. Heh. Also make-shift-ruff-earwrap-thingies! I'm so proud of them.

Currently the plan is to cover either all the books or until the whole Voldemort thing is resolved - might carry on a chapter's worth after wards to tie up the story. Right now I'd say... maybe ten chapters. Maybe more, maybe less. We'll see. My apologies for possible grammar errors.


	4. 151 to 200

**Flying Again**

151.

"… the myth aspect of it is interesting and I am sure I would enjoy the Drama of it more, but I am truly Worried about the effect of Petrification," Harry writes in his letter after explaining what had happened in Hogwarts. "As a Magical Effect it is something I doubt a Human could produce with a Wand, and yet I cannot find a Potion to achieve the same effect. Draught of Living Death comes close, but not close enough…"

Charlie leans back in his bad and strokes his hand over his chin. Hadn't he read something about petrification when he had been studying Care of Magical Creatures?

152.

"Do you think it could be Malfoy, the heir of Slytherin I mean?" Ron asks, frowning. "I mean, you know what he's like - and his whole family has been in Slytherin. They could've known about the chamber for centuries, handing the key down from father to son…"

"The Malfoy family comes from France," Harry answers, shaking his head while going through another book in hunt for whatever could cause the petrification effect. "They have only lived in Britain for about two centuries - and before his grandfather, all of his family went to Beauxbatons." He looks up. "Lineage book of the magical aristocrats of Britain," he explains. "I still think going after the Chamber is useless. If we figure out what causes petrification, we will know how to fight it - or avoid it."

"But if we find out _who's behind it_ we can stop it, can't we?" Ron asks, frowning.

"Yes, unless it's not them who's causing the petrification," Harry answers and goes back to his book. "And I very much doubt they are. That petrification is not the result of a _spell_."

153.

In his free time, Charlie goes through his old creature books, leafing through the pages in search for something he could only barely remember. "It could be a Cockatrice, but if it was I think someone would've noticed," he mused, glancing up to one of the dragons that were peering down to him and his book with interest. "Great big bird with a lizard's tail - that would be frankly rather hard to miss, don't you think?"

The dragon snorts, and with a chuckle, the Dragonologist goes back to the book. "There's a thought," he murmurs. "Something that causes petrification. How do you hide that in a castle full of hundreds of people not to mention about the ghosts and the paintings?"

154.

Though Harry finds it a little strange that the school still lets the students play Quidditch when there is something like the Chamber of Secrets business happening, he certainly doesn't mind. He doesn't even mind the fact that Slytherins all have top quality brooms and Draco Malfoy as their new seeker - that is how much he likes flying.

It seems a little less fun when there is a Bludger chasing him around the pitch, though. Harry flies left and right and zigzags across the field before plummeting to dive and pulling up at the last minute in attempt of getting away from the thing, only to have it follow him in every turn. Finally, Harry grows tired of it, and angles him right for a safe impact, intending to catch the Bludger to trap it. It slams badly against his shoulder and with a sickening crack Harry loses the mobility of his arm - but to his relief, the Bludger dies and falls to the ground.

He somehow manages to catch the snitch with useless arm and pain radiating thorough his torso, and lands to the ground, tired and pained and very ready for some medical treatment. "It's a simple charm; I've used it a hundred times!" Lockhart assures before Harry gets the chance to head for the Hospital wing. The man looks very confused when the charm he has used a _hundred times_ does absolutely nothing.

155.

Charlie's heart skips a beat when he reads about Harry's injury. "… of course Madam Pomfrey healed it well enough, and it was like nothing ever happened, even if it took three Potions as the first two seemed to be Defective. I had to stay in the Hospital Wing for the night because she wanted to be sure that the Potions truly had an effect…" Reading this certainly did not reassure Charlie in the slightest. "And to think, that a House-Elf was the perpetrator behind it - one that supposedly wants to Save my life…" And the letter hadn't even gotten to the part about the petrified boy, yet.

156.

"… I am relieved that you are doing okay, but please, kindly avoid further injuries. My blood ran cold reading your account of it. I felt quite the irresistible urge to cause some bodily harm for this Dobby…" Harry smiles faintly at the words, running his finger absently across the rim of his left ear-wrap. He has been wishing to cause Dobby some harm too, after finding out that the house elf had stolen his mail during summer. It hasn't seemed so important after he had seen poor petrified Colin Creevey, though.

The letter continues. "I have, however, given some thought to this business of petrifaction. Now that there are two victims, a cat and a boy, I think it can be safely said that no human could be behind it. A wizard could, theoretically, petrify an animal. Causing such an effect on human, and a wizard nonetheless, is a different thing. Sadly, the only creature I can think of that could cause such an effect is the Cockatrice - and I can't think of a way one could have that sort of creature in a school without anyone noticing…"

Charlie ends the letter with pleas for Harry to be careful and keep out of trouble, making the boy smile even wider than before. It feels nice; to have someone so worried for him.

157.

Harry swears that he'd be careful in his next letter, even promises not to attend to the duelling club that is started at the school, but Charlie still feels anxiety after he sends his reply. The House Elf causing a Bludger to injure Harry is already bad enough, but the concept of the petrifications, which before had been a worry but not a dire one as he hadn't quite believed it to be threatening to humans. Now, however, he worries about it constantly, wondering if there really is a Cockatrice loose on the school… school, which has _Harry_ inside it…

When Harry's next letter informs him, that another boy and a _ghost_ had been petrified, it takes every ounce of his will not to jump up and head to Hogwarts to drag the boy away from there, by force if he has to. In the end, only the knowledge that they had three clutches hatching within the month and that they'd need every worker they can get for that keeps him from doing it anyway. Instead he takes a deep breath, and sends Harry a packet full of books about the precaution and safety charms they use in the sanctuary, and a letter full of demands for him to be very careful.

How he manages to stop himself, he isn't sure, but he somehow does not demand Harry to leave the school for Christmas despite every ounce of him telling him to do it.

158.

The school empties almost completely for Christmas, as the third attack turns what had been worry and anxiety into outright fear and panic. Harry is, he finds, the only Ravenclaw who stays in the tower whilst everyone else heads home for the holidays. Harry doesn't mind, as it gives him the joy of having the Ravenclaw common room all to himself. He spends the time reading through the books Charlie had sent him and researching Cockatrices and when the Christmas feast comes around, he enjoys it in the Gryffindor table with Hermione and the Weasleys.

He sends a Charlie a book on dragons and some new photographs, and feels very dissatisfied with the gift. Charlie sends him a golden chain heavy with protective charms, which Harry wears around his wrist from there on.

159.

The cold tightness of Charlie's chest eases a little as time goes by and Harry's letters inform him of no new attacks. For a while he worries that the boy might be lying to him to keep him from worrying - but he rather doubts it. Harry is not a liar, he knows this with certainty he can't quite explain but which relieves him quite a bit. Still, it does not stop him from ending every letter with requests of caution and safety and dread the next letter for what it could say.

"This is why I shall never get myself into a long distance relationship," one of the other caretakers say one morning, pointing at Charlie who tensely reads a new letter and relaxes only once he is trough. "Stuff like that will drive you to an early grave." Charlie, however, is too busy with his second read to pay much mind at the way the others laugh at him.

160.

"I found it in one of the girls' bathrooms," Hermione shrugs her shoulders while Harry examines the thin book that had fallen off her bag. "Who knows how long it lay there, in the water, but it was still in pretty good shape when I found it that I figured it might have some interesting protection charms in it. I'm trying to find out what they are so that I can use them on my own books."

"Figures," Ron says without much interest while Harry flips the book open. The pages are empty. Harry leafs through few of them, before closing the book with disinterest.

161.

While they were feeding the many new dragonets they had at the sanctuary, one of the other caretakers asks Charlie what he would be doing if he hadn't gotten into Dragonology. It takes him a moment to figure out an answer, because now everything else seems inconceivable, other than that he probably wouldn't be doing anything. Now, if he would stop being a Dragonologist, he would move into Britain to be closer to Harry, probably. But back then, before… "I think I'd be sailing," he says, and feels as confused as the other caretaker looks at the notion.

162.

The attacks seem to stop completely at the school, and weeks turn to months without an incident. Harry feels both relieved and very dissatisfied with it because he still isn't sure about the petrification and is ever more curious about what caused it. Charlie suggested Cockatrice with some level of incredulity and Harry agrees - eight foot chicken with a lizard's tail would be hard to miss in school full of people. But no more petrifications happen and the clues stop coming in.

Like so, with business turning more or less to normal, Valentine's Day comes around - much to everyone's horror.

163.

Charlie is so amused by Harry's recounting about Valentine's Day at Hogwarts, that he reads few passages of his letter to his co-workers. The tales of Winged Dwarves with Harps cause the whole hall lapse into laugher and horror both, as the people wonder how much Lockhart must've spent on hiring them - dwarves were notoriously expensive to hire after all.

"… I had a talk with Your Sister, about the Valentine she sent me," Harry says in the letter, at the part that Charlie doesn't share with the others. "I fear I might've upset her and that I could've gone about it in more Delicate Manner, but I truly feel that it would be insensitive of me to let her continue her as she has, clinging to this Fantastic image of me as this Hero of fairytale. It is quite Unnerving, really…" Charlie swears not to tell Harry how much reading that segment relieved him.

164.

"Harry, Harry!" Hermione calls as she and Ron catch him just stepping out of the library. She is holding the book in her hand, the one she had found in the toilet. "You have to hear this! I believe we can use this book to figure out what happened with the chamber!"

They sit down and talk about the book, Tom Riddle's magical, interactive diary, that had promised to show Hermione and her friends what happened fifty years previous, when the Chamber had been opened the last time. However, as they huddle around the book, holding onto it as it instructed, nothing happens.

"It is strange," the book writes, seeming confused and maybe a little annoyed. "It is as if something is stopping me from inviting you into my memories."

Harry frowns at the book, and says nothing.

165.

"Why does he like you more than me?" Ginny writes in her letter, full of confusion and barely veiled anger of a young girl who doesn't yet understand the concept of being rejected. Charlie reads the letter through twice to make sure he reads it right, and spends hours trying to come up with a reply that would soothe her and explain her why it was best for her to just let it go without insulting her. It's that last question he cannot answer, any more than he can come up with explanation to why he feels so close to the boy himself.

"Some things just cannot be explained," he writes, and knows his little sister won't be satisfied with that.

166.

Hermione delves into Riddle's diary on her own, after they figure out that the diary can't take them in when Harry is around. The Ravenclaw doesn't mind the exclusion though he worries - especially when the diary gives them evidence of Hagrid of all people having been behind the attack fifty years earlier.

The fact that Hermione looses the diary few days later does little to alleviate his concerns.

167.

"I guess she didn't want to hear it," Charlie murmurs to himself, when Ginny never writes him back.

168.

"… or perhaps my advice was merely bad. I would appreciate if, however, if you could keep an eye on her. She might be a bit silly about the way she's going about this, but she is still my little sister and I do care for her. I wouldn't want see her downcast, even if it is largely by her own doing," Charlie's letter says, as Harry reads it from midst of choosing his electives for the third year.

In his next letter, Harry promised to as the man requested. However, it seems like secondary concern when Hermione is found petrified.

169.

"… of course, it is a well known Fact that Hagrid has a fondness towards Creatures and Beasts of less than gentle disposition. However, the mere concept that he could be behind these Attacks seems like great nonsense to me. Arresting him to me seems like doing something just for the sake of seeming like they are doing it. And having Professor Dumbledore removed from his post even greater folly," Harry's next letter says after explaining in detail about what happened to his and Ron's friend, Hermione and a elder Ravenclaw girl. The letter is elegant as usual, but it doesn't take much for Charlie to sense the fury bubbling beneath the words. Especially, the final words are quite worrisome to read. "However, this has given me an Idea about what the Slytherin Monster truly might be and how to find it…"

"… dear lord," Charlie mutters. He gives no second thought to work or duty - or even packing - and instead hurries to the Head caretaker's office to request a Portkey back to Britain.

170.

It doesn't take more than asking the ghosts to find out where the girl had died fifty years earlier - and discovering that the girl had stuck around as a ghost helps Harry's work even more. Determinately he makes his way to the girl's bathroom under the cover of his invisibility cloak and questions her. Moaning Myrtle has quite the story to tell him, and to hear that she died in the very same bathroom she now haunts is even more helpful.

Harry examines the toilets and the sinks, until he finds it - a little serpent insignia engraved to the side of a tab. Frowning, he takes out his wand, and aims it at the sink. Few destructive charms, and it gives away to reveal a passage behind it. Smiling with dark satisfaction, Harry transfigures the revealed pipe into spiralling staircase, and heads down.

171.

"Where is he? Harry, where is Harry?" Charlie demands to know when he arrives to the deputy headmistress's office through the fireplace. She stares at him in shock and only says that he must be in his dormitory - and what was this about? Charlie doesn't answer, and instead heads hurriedly out, to meet with Flitwick, to make _sure_ that Harry hasn't done something as utterly foolish as going after a _basilisk_.

Half an hour later, he has no such security to lean onto.

172.

Harry eyes the massive engraved doors with a thoughtful expression, quite impressed with the art work, before taking out his wand. "Open, or I'll blast you to pieces," he says, not noticing himself hissing as the doors quickly split open before him.

173.

"But why would Harry…?" Ron starts, confused as Charlie questions him almost desperately, hoping that he was wrong or that Harry would've at least told someone where he had headed off to. But there is no such luck; Ron doesn't seem to know anything.

"Why wouldn't he? His friend was attacked, and he figured out what was behind it. _Of course_ he went after it," Charlie snaps with annoyance and anxiety mixing into horrible, gut-wrenching irritation. "Can't you think of anything, anything he might've said… anything at all?"

Ron shakes his head with his eyes wide, and no one notices how Ginny slips away and out of the Gryffindor common room.

174.

"Now where is that Basilisk?" Harry mutters with his wand at ready and eyes downcast just in case, after having spent ten minutes transfiguring rocks and loose bricks into good two dozen roosters. Yet, in the great hall of the Chamber of Secrets, there is no sight of the great serpent, making him worry that it might be somewhere up in the school instead.

"It won't come unless it's called," a familiar voice says from behind him, and as Harry turns around he's surprised to see Ginny Weasley, standing at the doorway, aiming a wand at him. He is even more surprised when she suddenly drops to the floor in dead faint as mist starts spewing out of her mouth.

The mist forms into a young man that picks up her wand and smiles. "Hello, Harry Potter. I have been looking forward to meeting you."

175.

Charlie has never felt such overwhelming urge to curse a person, than when the teachers merely _do bloody nothing_ when they discover that not just one student but _two_ were lost. "They must be sneaking about somewhere, thinking it great bit of fun to cause fuss and make people worried," Snape sneers and Charlie only barely manages to keep himself for punching the man's nose in.

176.

Tom Riddle, Voldemort, who and whatever he is, is about as confusing at professor Quirrell and his abomination had been. Harry listens to his story and boasting and confusion about how a mere baby could defeat the greatest of all dark wizards with a flat expression, and only narrows his eyes when the apparition speaks of the diary and all the things Ginny had confined into it. "I really must thank you," the apparition says, laughing as he aims his wand and starts blasting the transfigured roosters. "If it wasn't for you, she wouldn't haven written nearly as much! All that complaining and whining… it made it ever so much easier for me to take over her!"

177.

"What?" Charlie roared. "Your great plan to get them back is to _call in my parents and wait for Dumbledore to come_? They are gone _now_, they are in danger _now_ and you really _intend to do bloody nothing and wait_?"

"Perhaps we should send Gilderoy," professor Sprout asks, narrowing her eyes at the golden robed man who blanches at the sound of it. "After all, didn't you say that you knew the exact location chamber just the other night?"

Charlie stares at the professors with disbelief as they poke fun at the author's expense and wonders why, _why_ did people consider the staff of Hogwarts the elite of the wizarding world.

178.

Harry closes his eyes as the basilisk finally comes, and realises that his plan hadn't been as good as he had thought. With Riddle destroying the roosters as he made them, and him being unable to look up without risking being killed - or petrified - by the basilisk's gaze, his options are limited. He could try making more of the birds, but he doubted riddle would give him another chance. He couldn't attack riddle, because that would give the basilisk an opportunity he couldn't risk.

There are only so many options and he doesn't have the time to consider them. As he hears the great snake slithering closer hissing and snarling, he takes a deep breath.

179.

Even when Dumbledore does come, they do nothing. Charlie stares, his faith in magic and Hogwarts and it's staff diminishing with each second, as the professors argue about what they should be do, with Charlie's mother and father bellowing over the noise, demanding them to do something. Finally, he gives up with them, realising their uselessness, and heads out of the office, intending to do what they couldn't be bothered with, and actually try and find and maybe even _save_ two children in danger.

It would take a while for Hogwarts, its professors and it's headmaster to realise what a powerful ally they had lost that moment.

180.

The roar stops the basilisk for a moment, leaving it moaning in agony, but under Riddle's hissed commands it rears up again and gets ready for an attack. Harry ducks and avoids and runs and feels odd, almost exhilarating familiarity about it that makes his spine tingle and the skin of his back crawl. As he roars again, making the hall echo with the blast-like sound and the basilisk moan again, his limbs quiver and his muscle's strain, and it feels almost like freedom.

The change comes over him like second nature - not out of fear or panic or anything but the familiarity of the battle, and simple and almost natural understanding that he cannot fight a fifty foot poisonous serpent as a _human._

181.

A Point-Me charm does nothing to find Harry, but when Charlie incants it again with Ginny in mind, it works - and points almost directly at his feet. As Charlie rush towards the nearest staircase leading down, the floor beneath his feet jerks a little with odd quake - and somewhere in distance he hears the echo of what sounds like a dragon's roar.

182.

He knows this new form so well, that it doesn't take him more than a second to adjust to it, to draw his wings tightly against his sleek, long body and shift around the pillars. He is so big now that the enormous chamber seems smaller than the cupboard under the stairs in Privet Drive. It's a little uncomfortable and little awkward, but he doesn't have the time to worry about that. The basilisk hisses and snarls at him in fear and bravado, but it's _small_ now, not even half as long as he is. Harry roars back, making the ceiling rattle and the pillars shudder, and lunges.

The ghost of Tom Riddle watches from the side with horrified eyes as the dragon that had been a little boy mere minute earlier bats the basilisk aside with great talon like it was just a boa constrictor. Then the dragon bites into the back of the great serpent's neck, ending it life in single forceful crunch.

183.

The Point-Me charm would've led him to the dungeons, had it not been for the Grey Lady, who tells him that last she had seen of Harry Potter, he had been heading to meet Moaning Myrtle. "Something about the time when she died," she says, but Charlie is already heading off and towards the third floor bathroom

184.

Returning to human form takes a moment to figure out - being a dragon is so much more comfortable that he doesn't want to, but he knows he cannot remain in the form so far under ground and all the exits being too small for him to take them. With the basilisk lying limb and lifeless next to him, the great black dragon slowly reverts back to the form of a twelve-year-old boy, who approaches the ghost of what the Dark Lord had once been.

"Don't come closer!" Tom Riddle cries, but he is bound to the diary and the process of draining Ginny Weasley's life force is unfinished. There is no where and no way he can run.

185.

Harry seems wholly unprepared to see him, when the boy comes out hole carved into the bathroom wall with spell fire, supporting half unconscious Ginny at his side. Charlie doesn't know whether to berate the boy or hug him and ends up doing little bit of both at the same time, thanking him for being well and cursing him for being a fool in same breath.

"I am well," the boy assures confusedly while Charlie clutches both him and tired Ginny to him. "And I am happy to see you," he adds in quieter voice, giving away his carefully concealed worries and fears, before smothering them again and saying, "Only, Ginny is tired and worn. She needs medical attention."

"I'm fine," she assures in small voice, weary and tearful and befuddled.

Charlie doesn't listen to either of them, and determinately takes the _both_ to the hospital wing for thorough check up and treatment.

186.

Leaning to Charlie's side happily, Harry explains to the curious and confused teachers how he had figured out what was causing the petrifications and how to find the way to the beast. Professor McGonagall gasped and berated him, telling him he ought to have told it to a teacher which makes Charlie scowl slightly, and for a moment it looks like the two of them will get into an argument before Dumbledore asks how Ginny fits into all of it. So Harry explains about what he understood of Tom Riddle's diary.

"I'm sorry, I left it into the chamber," he says then, a little embarrassed. He had shoved it into the basilisk's mouth and slammed the dead serpent's yaw shut on it. He rather doubts the book had survived it, he muses while the Weasleys - with exception of Charlie who doesn't budge from Harry's side - huddle around Ginny who cries apologies at them.

"That is quite alright Harry, I dare say we will be able to find it," professor Dumbledore says, looking between Harry and Charlie with an odd look about his face. "I think it is best that you and Miss Weasley remain in the hospital wing thorough the night, while I and the professors see what we can find in the chamber," he adds and gives Charlie a look. "Mr. Weasley, I would be glad if you could spare me a moment before returning to Romania. Your presence here intrigues me to say at least."

Harry looks up to the man with confusion, as Charlie tenses at his side.

187.

"I do believe you promised me you'd avoid trouble," Charlie mutters into Harry's hair a little later, after Harry and Ginny had been put into separate rooms and he had found himself alone with the Ravenclaw. "You very near stopped my heart with that letter! What were you _thinking_?"

"I am sorry," Harry says, but it's not very convincing, and soon after he adds, "But at least the basilisk is now dead. That makes the school safer."

Charlie sighs, bumping his forehead against the boy's and wonders if it's worth the trouble trying to explain his worries to the boy or try and wrangle another promise to be careful out of him. Somehow he already knows that Harry would follow his orders only as much as it suited him and rather go with his own notions, as foolish as they might be. "I want _you_ safe," he finally says. "But I am glad you have at least some consideration for the well being of others. Only, the next time try and see how it would feel for you if it was I, rushing off to get myself very nearly killed like you did."

Harry starts a little at the thought, and looks up to the man. "I don't think would let you," he says, frowning determinately.

Charlie sighs and shakes his head. "Precisely."

188.

Charlie spends the night in the school, of which Harry is very glad now that he has the concept of Charlie getting himself into danger making him anxious. He very nearly doesn't let the man leave his side even when the headmaster wants to change words with him, but relents eventually under Charlie's admonishing look. When the man returns, in slightly fouler mood and harsh force in his strides, Harry feels he should've kept him regardless of it being impolite.

"I must return to the Sanctuary," the man says in the next morning, as Harry is released from the hospital wing. "I will write to you as soon as I can. And in the meanwhile, I want you to _swear_ that you have no more adventures on your own."

"If I don't, would you stay?" Harry asks hopefully, though he knows it's a fruitless endeavour.

"I very well might," the man chuckles, and embraces him tightly. "Don't worry," he adds in oddly dark tone. "I will make sure to see you this summer."

189.

After making sure that Ginny is alright and that Ron knows better than to let Harry run off on his own again, Charlie heads back to Romania, already making plans for the summer. His determination has only intensified with his last talk with Albus Dumbledore. The man had nearly demanded him to keep his distance with Harry - to not _meddle_ with him - saying that Hogwarts would care of the boy. Charlie is infuriated by the mere concept of it. After what he had seen in Hogwarts he would damn well _meddle_ with the boy as much as he liked.

It certainly hadn't seemed to him like anyone in that castle cared about the boy's well being enough to try and lift a single finger to help him when he was in danger.

190.

"I'm really sorry," Ginny says to him when they leave the hospital wing. She seems downcast and miserable. "I… I can't remember much of it, and I know that the professors and mum says it's not my fault, but still, I'm sorry. And not just for the whole thing with the diary, but for being such a bother all year. I don't know what I was thinking."

"You probably weren't," Harry shrugs his shoulder absently and doesn't notice her hurt look. He is thinking of what happened in the chamber, the part of which he hadn't told anyone, not even Charlie, about. Now, in hindsight, turning into a dragon seems rather strange. "They are right, though. It isn't your fault. I imagine with a diary of all things trying to possess you and causing you some memory problems, you most likely weren't in a fit state of mind even when you weren't being affected."

"So you forgive me?" she asked.

"What? Yes, of course," Harry waved the matter aside, and goes back to his original line of thought. He'd need to study self transformations and animagi more closely when he got the chance.

191.

"You're one of my best workers and I have no doubt that once you have more experience you will be among the few very best Dragonologists in the whole word. But the next time you appear to my office out of the blue like that, demanding a Portkey, I'd like an explanation," the head caretaker mutters while handing Charlie a sheet of assignment he has piled as thinly veiled punishments. "I hope whatever made you start like that has been resolved?"

"More or less," Charlie says and doesn't bother to apologise or promise that it would be the last time this would happen. With Harry being the way he is and Hogwarts being the way it is, he wouldn't be able to do that without probably making himself a liar very soon.

192.

The Hogwarts year came to close after plenty of exams and much relief when those who had been petrified were cured. Harry explains what had happened to Hermione once she has gotten out of the hospital wing, asking, "How did you figure out it was a basilisk?" once she has been filled in on the details. "I only realised it in the end because you had a mirror with you."

"I was thinking of Riddle's diary and how it failed with you, and couldn't bring you into the memory" she says. "It made me thinking that maybe the petrification wasn't the aim, but the failed result of what the Heir was trying to do. After all, petrification is curable, so he wouldn't bother with that in his quest of ridding the school of muggleborns."

"What _I_ don't get is how you defeated a _basilisk_," Ron says frowning. "That's not something you just do, you know?"

Harry shrugs his shoulders. "I still need to figure that out for myself, I think," he muses.

193.

Once the head caretaker is in better mood, Charlie approaches him with an idea he had had whilst visiting Harry. The man doesn't care for it much, but his answer is not an immediate a, much to the younger caretaker's relief. It would just take bit more pushing to get it approved, but Charlie is positive he can persuade the man to see the benefit of his idea.

194.

Harry returns to the Privet Drive after a pleasant train ride and not so pleasant car ride, already wondering how to explain his muggle family to Charlie. He hasn't told the man much about the Dursleys because he doesn't really know how to do it. The Dursleys aren't at all pleasant or nice, and they constantly try means by which to make him miserable - which Harry rarely stands for, of course, but they certainly try. Even now Uncle Vernon demands he put his trunk into the cupboard again, which Harry pretends not to hear.

To hear that aunt Marge is going to come and visit during the summer does certainly not lift Harry's spirits any more than being at the Dursleys' otherwise does. When he sits down to write a letter to Charlie, he already fears it will be a miserable one.

195.

"… of course one cannot choose one's Family and in truth the Dursley Household could be much worse. As such, I truly lack nothing except perhaps Respect and Compassion from their part, but I have long since learned not to expect any," Harry's letter says, making Charlie frown slightly. "As it stands I only have to endure their Company for so long in any case, and it is something I should be able to handle without much trouble. However, I would very much like the chance of seeing You this summer. The time at Hogwarts was so very brief…"

In Harry's way of writing, that is as good as begging.

196.

"… with so many new dragons thanks to the clutches of winter, and two more on the way, the sanctuary is helplessly busy and everyone's vacation time has been cut some here. However, I suspect I can take two weeks worth of time off, during which I hope to come to Britain and see you," Charlie writes, making Harry sigh with slight relief as he leans against wall and reads the dearly familiar stocky writing. "I am also working on another possibility that might allow us to see without me neglecting my duties in the process. I dare not say much of it yet as I cannot know for certain of how it will go, but if my plan will be approved, you will hear of it soon enough."

197.

The word of his father winning the Daily Prophet's Grand Prize Galleon Draw comes at a good and a bad time. Charlie just got his plea for vacation approved, which he had intended to take in Britain and to use to spent time with Harry, so the idea of going to Egypt with his family is rather bothersome for him - especially since he knows his mother would hear none of it if he were to decline. He doesn't want to let them down - and seeing Bill would be nice, as it had been some time - he doesn't want that to take away from his time with Harry.

So, instead he goes through his finances, figures he might have just enough, and approaches his father with a letter about the matter.

198.

Harry gets a letter from Ron, gushing and enthusing about how his father had won the lottery and how they'd be going to Egypt - and how Harry could come with them, if they wanted to, that Charlie had promised to pay for him. Charlie's letter, which arrives a little after Ron's, explains it in further detail, saying that the lottery win had disrupted his earlier plans, but perhaps not destroyed them. "… my parents certainly seem not to mind, and even Bill says he'd like to meet you. You need not to worry a thing; I have enough saved so that I can cover all your expanses for the vacation…"

In his letter back to him and Ron, Harry laughs and berates them and says that of course he will pay for himself. When he starts packing and waiting for Mr. Weasley to come and fetch him, the Dursleys are not happy at all to hear that he'd be going to Egypt, as it makes Dudley whine something awful. Harry quite honestly does not much care - though he was immensely relieved he didn't have to endure the company of aunt Marge after all.

199.

Charlie is the first to get to Egypt, being a bit closer. Bill welcomes him at the Egyptian version of Ministry of Magic, before taking him to his apartment in the magical district of Cairo. "Paid by the goblins," Bill explains while showing around the apartment which is really more like a penthouse. "They tend to get discount for just about everything in Egypt since we're the ones enriching their vaults with long lost national treasures - as well as our own, of course."

Bill has a tour plan already figured out; a route by the non magical and magical sites both thorough is family's two-week stay in the sun-scorched land. Charlie only listens to it with half an ear, and instead glances back and forth between him and his watch, eagerly waiting for the time when the rest of their party arrives. Bill watches this with a curious expression and shakes his head, bemused. "I guess dad wasn't kidding, then," he mutters, but Charlie is too distracted to notice.

200.

Harry only spends one hour at the Burrow, before Mr. Weasley takes him hurriedly to the Gringotts to get some gold and then he and Mrs. Weasley usher the whole lot of them through a fireplace, and then to the Ministry of Magic for a Portkey. Harry doesn't get see much of the Ministry, before they are handed the Portkey that sends them into a nauseating trip through hundreds of miles, but the golden statues of the fountain fascinate him.

All thought of the fountain vanishes, though, when they land in undignified heap and familiar strong hands pull Harry up. "Are you hurt?" Charlie asks in way of greeting, glancing up and down at him and running his hand over Harry's shoulders in concern. The younger wizard answers with a smile and by throwing his arms around the man's neck.

"I'm perfectly fine, now," he says with deep satisfaction.

x

Temeraire transformation! Well, just for a moment, but it's a start. Charlie going head to head with Dumbledore too, hehe. Start of a beautiful animosity, right there. Well, sort of.

Now I shall be taking a bit of a leave in order to wrestle the dragon that is Nanowrimo, but I'll be back to writing fanfiction in month and half. See you then, and good luck to fellow wrimos. My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.


	5. 201 to 250

**Flying Again**

201.

Charlie keeps an eye carefully on Harry, through the bustle of getting the whole family to Bill's apartment so that they could pack and change into lighter clothes. The boy is full of excitement and bubbling energy that makes him look around with wide eyes and lean a little too far out when looking out of the windows. Ron and Ginny seem to share his enthusiasm fully, but Charlie is happy to see that they also shared his own worry. Ginny even at one point pulled Harry back by the back of his shirt when the boy leaned to look down from a balcony.

"Excitable little thing, isn't he?" Bill asks amusedly

"Excitable, yes," Charlie agrees, shaking his head. He isn't quite sure how Bill could consider Harry a little, though.

202.

As interesting as the pyramids and old curses are, Harry finds that the best thing about Cairo is the magical bazaar. With Charlie following him with amusement, he flits around the crowded street, letting every sparkly thing he could see draw his attention, and bringing the best ones with him. He changes his muggle clothes into colourful robes and scarves and gets enough new jewellery to fill two bags and according to Ron looks like a girl by the time they come out of the crowded bazaar. He doesn't much care and happily shakes his hands at the redhead, listening to the chiming of the new bracelets. Ginny, who had brought pretty much the same things as Harry had even if in more moderate amounts, repeats the gesture and jingles her own bracelets until Ron walks away muttering.

Harry never notices that while walking behind him, Charlie saves him from no less than three pickpockets.

203.

"Why must I read this when you're much better able to do it by yourself?" Charlie asks a bit plaintively that evening, eying the heavy copy of _Mécanique céleste_ by Pierre-Simon Laplace. The whole book is written in French, one of the many, many languages Charlie has never much cared for. "You are the one who speaks French, not I."

"Yes, but I like to hear you reading it," Harry says contently, lying with his head in the man's lap and with his hands held up. He turns them slightly, and smiles happily at the several bracelets making his wrists heavy.

Neither of them thinks it at all strange that Charlie knows Harry's affinity with languages without the boy ever telling him about it.

204.

The holiday would've easily been the best Harry had ever had the chance to enjoy, if it hadn't been pulling to a close so soon. They toured and saw sights and marvelled over ancient Egyptian curses and every evening Harry had the pleasure of listening Charlie read to him whilst the others played games or chatted among themselves or listened to Bill's many stories about his work. As such days fly past incredibly fast, and soon a week and half is gone and the holiday is soon coming to its end.

It isn't as bad as it could've been - the Weasleys have already extended invitation to him to enjoy the remainder of his holidays at the Burrow - but it isn't good enough. Charlie, after all, has to return to Romania, as his holiday this summer is remarkably shorter. And on top of everything, there is still good month and a week to go before school would start and Harry cannot even distract himself with Hogwarts library.

"Well," Charlie hums when Harry explains his misery about the soon-to-come separation. "Maybe there is no cause for it just yet." And then he shows a letter from the head of the Longhorn Sanctuary, begrudgingly inviting Harry for extended excursion to the sanctuary.

205.

"You think it's wise? He is only thirteen years old and Dragon Sanctuary is no place for a kid," their father muses in the last night in Egypt, while the younger Weasleys and Harry compete about who has gotten best souvenirs. Harry wins in sheer quantity, but as his are mostly trinkets he falls behind Fred's and George's many new magical instruments. "And Harry is not exactly… Well, despite being a Quidditch player, one couldn't call him an athlete. And working in a sanctuary is hard physical work, isn't it?"

"Yeah. The poor boy's distraught when he as much as breaks a nail," Bill agrees, amused and not at all offensive.

Charlie smiles to himself while listening Harry vehemently saying that at least his souvenirs are pretty. "If he won't care for it, I will of course arrange him a transport back to Britain," he says, shaking his head. "But I have no doubt he'll be right at home at the sanctuary."

His father and elder brother give him a look of disbelief, but say nothing to it. "Just look after the boy," their father says, frowning and glancing down to the paper about Sirius Black's escape from Azkaban. "And keep in mind your mother will probably be rather angry with you, if you let anything happen with you."

206.

Harry and Charlie separate from the other Weasleys in Egypt, and while most of the family heads back to Britain and Bill heads to work, Harry and Charlie take a Portkey to the Longhorn Sanctuary, where they are greeted by the curious head of the sanctuary, and some other caretakers. Harry, while shaking their hands and greeting them in English, listens to Charlie translating with curiosity. Then he is quickly distracted by cry of one of the dragons, that calls shrilly at the sound of him, alerting all the other dragons as well.

The caretakers watch with amazement as the smaller dragons hide into their lairs and caves, and the bigger ones come forward, one especially large Hungarian Horntail snarling threateningly and challengingly at Harry, but at a safe distance. Harry looks at them with curiosity and amazement, while the caretakers finger their wands and try to figure out what's making them act like that. All these dragons, even the big Horntail, are smaller than he had been, when he had turned into a dragon.

And he's fairly certain they know it as well.

207.

Charlie doesn't know _what_ he had been expecting, but what actually happens is most certainly not it. He had thought that Harry would be comfortable at the sanctuary, even like it, and the boy does seem to be. He is curious and inquisitive and asks lot of questions like he had in Egypt - even goes as far as approaching the caretakers who know English to teach him some Romanian - so in that aspect everything goes more or less as Charlie had suspected.

The boy's oddly _accepting_ attitude towards the dragon is a bit of a surprise for the other caretakers. Usually when they got younger wizards visiting, they seemed to be mostly interested in dragons, in seeing them fly and breathe fire - all the while wanting to keep their distance. Harry seems perfectly at ease with the beasts, and despite how he dresses he isn't beyond putting his jewellery away and wearing protective robes so that he can give a hand with the usual chores around the sanctuary.

That, however, doesn't surprise Charlie as much as the way _other_ dragons react to Harry. He had not even in his nightmares thought that they'd be in any way dangerous towards Harry, for some reason it hadn't even occurred him. But the blatant _fear_ the other dragons have for the boy is alarming and little disheartening for some reason that he can't explain. Not to himself - and certainly not to the other caretakers who eye the boy with confusion, wonder and maybe bit of fear of their own.

"What _is_ that boy?" one of the order caretakers asks, and with an odd sensation of vertigo, Charlie realises he has no idea.

208.

"I do like it here," Harry says late in the night once the first day at the sanctuary is over and he is stretched comfortably on a bed. "It is… homely, in a way…" he frowns, trailing a way. "But there is something about this place that feels off to me."

"Like what?" Charlie asks while going through the boy's trunk in search for the book he had been reading to him in the previous night.

"I do not know. I can't wrap my finger around it," Harry complains, and rests his chin on his crossed arms. "It is like this sanctuary is a replication of something I have seen before, but with some details being different - like a watercolour painting of a photograph I have seen long time ago, and half forgotten. Does that make sense?"

"In a way, I suppose it does," the man says, after finding the book. He sits beside the boy and as he leans against the wall, Harry is quick to stretch himself so that he's half across the man's lap. Charlie smiles indulgently and opens the book. "When I came here the first time, it felt like that for me as well. It still does, sometimes."

"Were the dragons so nervous of you? Harry asked curiously.

Charlie pauses and then shakes his head. "No, no they weren't," he answers, and looks down. "Do you know why they seem so anxious around you?"

"Maybe." Harry is quiet for a moment, as Charlie leafs through the pages in search for where they had left off. "I would like to show you something," the boy then says a bit hesitatingly. "It's something I did, back in Hogwarts, when I was facing the basilisk, though I am not completely certain if I could do it again. Only, it is magic and I'm not allowed to do magic in summer."

"Is it important?" the man asks, and Harry nods against his stomach. "Well then, perhaps I shall let you in on a little, rather badly kept secret about the Trace…"

209.

The Longhorn sanctuary covers three Unplottable valleys and good two hundred acres of land. The surrounding mountains were all Unplottable as well, and smothered under wards and muggle repellent charms and such, to keep people out. As such, there is plenty of space in the area where there are no people at all, and when Harry asks for a big empty space where no one would see them, Charlie has no difficulty of finding one.

There, on a smaller valley between mountains where only birds and animals could see them, the boy stands at a distance, and closes his eyes. For a moment he looks small and fragile in his jewellery and rather Egyptian robes, before his image shifts, and starts to change. It is a physical transformation, Charlie knows, and looks rather like what it looked like when professor McGonagall transformed. Except instead of shrinking, Harry grows, and grows and _grows_ until he is easily the biggest living creature Charlie has seen personally.

The Dragonologist looks up at the enormous black dragon that has taken the place of a slim boy, takes in the ruff that had replaced the silver ear-wraps and tendrils that had replaced tiny braids, the sleek colouring and the blue markings at the edge of the wings, and lets out a shaky sigh. Finally, he thinks. _Finally._

210.

Harry stretches his wings and his tail, shifts a little and enjoys the utter _mobility_ of his new form, and how much better it feels out here, than it had in the Chamber of Secrets. Except, it doesn't feel new at all. He spreads his wings and beats them experimentally, and it feels truly like he had always had them, like he had only given them up for a moment and now had them again.

"I do not know how it happened, exactly, but I think I quite like this," he says, and looks down, only to see Charlie walking towards him in long strides, almost running. For a moment Harry is worried about what he might think, anxious to have the man's approval for his odd, incredible ability. But Charlie says nothing, merely walks closer and then touches his chest, running his hand up his neck. Automatically Harry bends his head down. Charlie looks so small, now, but so familiar as well, as the man strokes his cheek and nose and leans closer.

"I don't _understand_ this," the man whispers in choked tone. "But I've _missed_ you. Lord above, I've missed you so much."

211.

Harry explains rather practically that he had changed into a dragon to defeat the basilisk, and that it had came on rather naturally. "I think I could have done it before. Only I had no need to, so I didn't," the boy, the _dragon_, says, while Charlie steps back to examine him and marvel the _extent_ of his form. By lords, the dragon is massive, and not of any breed he has ever seen. The ruff of agile horns with webbing of skin between them, that Harry can move as he wishes, is somewhat similar to that on the Chinese Fireball, but that's where the similarities with that breed or any other end.

"Do you think you could fly?" Charlie asks. Harry is at least twice as long as the Fireballs that tend to be long, and by his estimate as heavy as two, maybe even three Horntails, that are the heaviest of all dragons.

"I doubt there would be any difficulty," Harry muses, fanning out his impressive six-spined wings. "Do you want me to try?"

"Yes. Wait, no," Charlie says immediately after, frowning. Harry is so big that it's a wonder they had gone unnoticed so far - when he spread out his wings they stretched above the treetops. If he would fly he would surely be spotted, and Charlie isn't sure if that is quite smart. Especially in close proximity of many wizards trained in the art of handling dragons, without informing them first.

"I would like to see it, one day. I would like it very much," he assures when Harry gives him confused, and a little hurt look. "But perhaps now is not the time. Can you change back?"

The massive dragon nods and shrinks fluidly back into the shape of a thirteen-year-old boy. "It feels strange, being human again," he says, while walking up to the man. He seems impossibly small and somehow more powerful because of it.

212.

In the following days, Harry enjoys the life at the sanctuary without the previous weight of a secret weighing him down. He likes the work the caretakers give him - it's simple enough, mostly just carrying things for them as they do their duties - and it gives him ample time to ask questions and listen to answers. He learns every new word in Romanian with enthusiasm, until soon most of the caretakers start speaking as much in it as in English to him, reverting to the latter only when he encounters a new word. He especially likes the older caretakers; they have so many interesting stories.

In meanwhile, Charlie orders them new books, these about Animagi and human transfiguration and tales of wizards and witches that have dragons in them. There have been only handful of magicians that have boasted ability to transform into a dragon over the ages, and most of their tales seem to be more myth than fact. More than that, there are tales of wizards turning hapless Muggles or _each other_ into dragons in fights or acts of revenge. In each case, however, such transformation is the result of incredible amount of work and effort, whilst for Harry it came effortlessly.

Harry can't help but be pleased about being special, but it also makes it a bit difficult for him. He would very much like to try and fly and enjoy his draconic form, but Charlie cautions against it, telling him to keep it a secret and not show it to people if he can avoid it.

213.

"You are a special wizard, Harry," Charlie explains, thinking of Sirius Black and the threat that loomed over the boy without his knowledge. "You are famous and you have many enemies whether you know it or not. I know you do not much like hiding, but the fact is that this ability is best kept a secret. In case someone attacks you or tries to do you harm, it is better that they do not know of your dragon form, and know to prepare for it."

Harry frowns, looking away for a moment. "I suppose I understand that," he finally murmurs. "But is it always going to be like this? I don't think I much like the idea of always hiding. I like my dragon form too much to never use it again."

"No, no," Charlie sighs, gathering him close and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Not always. But perhaps at least until you're of the age? Four years, that is all I ask."

"Alright. But doesn't that mean that I will be an illegal Animagus?" Harry asked, leaning gratefully to him and looking at the bed, where they had piled the Animagus books. "Since to keep secret I cannot register myself."

"For now," Charlie agrees. "When the time comes that you no longer need to hide this ability, we can fake your training and make it seem like the ability is new." When Harry only nods and says nothing, the man chuckles. "It is an incredible ability," he says. "You should be proud."

"Are you?" the boy asks in quiet tone, glancing up hopefully.

Charlie's smile is answer enough.

214.

They celebrate Harry's birthday quietly in the sanctuary, with no cake and only one present, which Charlie wraps around Harry's neck. "It's just silver," the man says when the boy looks down to the heavy necklace with a pearl in middle of it. "But it looks about right, doesn't it?"

"It looks perfect," Harry says, looking down to the silver plate he had designed in his first year at Hogwarts, and beams.

215.

It's only days after Harry's transformation that Charlie gives _any_ consideration at all to the fact that Harry could speak, like a human, in his draconic form. But even it's a passing thought that he only barely acknowledges. To him it is perfectly natural that Harry would be able to talk as a dragon. After all, why wouldn't he?

Harry, it seems, _never_ thinks it something special. For him it is much more special and pressing that no other dragons can talk - like he was the norm and they the exception, and not the other way around.

216.

Harry sighs to himself while looking over the many caves and lairs. He would've much preferred that the other dragons wouldn't fear him so much, but despite his attempt to approach them nicely, they all ran away hissing and snarling, even the biggest ones. And talking to them did nothing, no matter what language he tried, they all merely snapped and growled unintelligibly back.

"I don't understand them," he murmurs to himself, folding his arms with displeasure. Whether the other dragons understand him is hard to tell too, they never stick around long enough for him to discern it. "Are all dragons like this, Charlie?" he asks, looking up to the man.

"All we know of, as far as I can tell," the man answers, with similar dissatisfaction. "Sometimes it seems they can understand me - every now and again I read them the stories you write in your letters and they seem to enjoy them. But as far as communication goes…"

Harry sighs, frowning and looking ahead again. "Perhaps we need to earn their trust," he muses.

"Perhaps so," the Dragonologist agrees. "Now come, we have lot to do today and no time to waste."

217.

One nice day, when all the work is done and they find themselves with few hours to spare, Charlie packs them a basket and takes Harry down to the small lake that rests in the bottom of the valley. Despite the sorrows of confusion caused by the dragons' lack of understanding, Harry brightens up immediately and rushes to the shoreline in fascination. Charlie can barely hold him back long enough for the boy to change his clothes, and then before he can say otherwise, the boy rushes to the water like he had been waiting for the chance all his life.

Watching him from the shoreline, Charlie muses about how familiar the sight is and how new. Then Harry is calling him to the water as well, and he realises that this time there was no actual danger with him joining - the water was fine and Harry wouldn't crush him with his size and weight. So, with a soft laugh at himself, he changes his attire as well, and joins the younger wizard in the waves.

218.

"I wonder, what should I do with this?" Harry asks while spreading the sheets of his Hogwarts letter to the bedspreads, glancing at the list before turning his attention to the permission slip. With it, he would've been allowed to visit Hogsmeade on certain weekends, but the permission demanded a parent's or guardian's signature. That meant Dursleys, whom he has not intended to see again that summer.

"Could you sign it?" he asks, looking up to Charlie who is untying his charmed neck cloth and getting ready for bed.

"Despite all evidence to the contrary, I'm afraid I am not your guardian," the man apologises, sitting next to him. He looks strangely thoughtful and a little worried as he rests one warm hand on Harry's upper back. "It might be best that you wait another year before visiting Hogsmeade in any case."

"Why?" Harry asks, frowning and confused.

Charlie hesitates, pressing a kiss absently to his temple. "There might be trouble," he says. "I will… explain it to you later."

"Why not now?"

"Because you have few days left here, and I do not want worries of the future ruin them for you," the man says. "Do put the letter aside for a moment and do not let it bother you for now," he adds while reaching for a book they had been reading the previous evening. Harry sees it for what it is, a distraction, but the look in the man's face makes him not to ask about it further. At least, not now.

219.

Charlie silently mourns the quick passing of the time Harry spends in the sanctuary, all the while being pleased to see him learning a whole new language and a great deal about dragon care. Despite their many attempts, in the end the dragons remain suspicious and nervous of Harry - even the young Norwegian Ridgeback that Harry had seen hatch doesn't warm up to him, even if she is a little less leery than the other smaller dragons. It makes him a little sad, but he lightens up a little when Charlie promises that it wouldn't be the last time he got to try and win their trust.

"I would much rather have you stay here," the man admits in the last night when Harry climbs to his lap to enjoy the last moments alone. "But the head caretaker is willing to allow only so much and you have school to go to…" and so he tells in quiet tones of Sirius Black and the threat that waits Harry in Britain.

"Is this why you do not wish me to visit Hogsmeade? And why you want me to keep my dragon form a secret?" Harry asks.

"It's the most immediate concern, yes, but even if and when Sirius Black is caught, no one can tell what other threats come after you. I'd rather you be prepared and with ace up your sleeve, that with no such security prepared," the Dragonologist answers. "Pray, promise me that you'll be safe," he adds quietly, running his hand over the boy's back as Harry hums a content, and slightly muffled, answer against his chest.

220.

Their goodbyes this time are lengthy and solemn. Though Harry feels no true concern for Sirius Black, as the thought has yet to sink in and it seems so distant in the Sanctuary, he is very aware of Charlie's concerns and makes an effort to try and ease them. "I'm not helpless; I know great many combat spells, and the ones you've taught me. And if he comes after me, I will turn into a dragon and sit on him if I can't do anything else," he promises earnestly, making the man let out a helpless snort of laughter. Then they embrace one final time before Harry takes the Portkey back to the British Ministry of Magic, where Mr. Weasley is already waiting for him.

To Harry's surprise, however, the man says that he won't be staying with the Burrow with the rest of the Weasleys. "Due to circumstances beyond my control, the Ministry has arranged your stay at Leaky Cauldron for the remainder of the summer holidays," the man says, a little uneasy at the prospect. "Its only week and half now, so it won't be long," he adds, consolingly.

"Stay in the Alley?" Harry answers, confused but not much put out. Though he had visited the place twice now - three times if the brief visit to Gringotts at beginning of the summer could be counted - he had never truly explored it with time. Even with Charlie there had been bit of a rush. "I don't mind at all," he decides, and makes himself soon home in a nice, rather large room in the magical inn at the entrance of the Diagon Alley.

221.

"… suspect it is for Extra Security. Few times now I've heard steps or smelled someone without anyone having been in the view - a person under Invisibility Cloak, a guard assigned to my detail, I believe. In any case, I do not mind. I have plenty of time to read, and I get to explore the Alley with time, which I've yet to do. I've found a few more books with Dragon Stories in them, though none which would apply to my situation, but interesting nonetheless…" Harry says in his letter, which arrives not much after his departure. Charlie can't suppress the anxiety at the thought of Harry being so without supervision, but knows his father wouldn't have allowed if it wasn't safe.

"I have been cautious with my Capital, never fear," the boy adds to alleviate some concern which he apparently perceives Charlie to have - and for a good cause, as the boy's spending couldn't be called reserved. "I have talked it over with the Goblins as well and to my surprise I've found that the Vault to which McGonagall gave the Key is not the only one in my possession, or the Wealth inside all I own, so I am well in pocket at the moment. However, on Dirshowl's - that is to say, my new Account Manager's - suggestion, I have placed a notable sum aside to be saved for later date, so I am Financially Secured…"

222.

Harry enjoys his stay at the Diagon Alley immensely - and not just for the things he can buy, but the things he finds he owns. Aside from finding out that two old magicians had left their wealth to him for some reason, Harry finds out that over the last dozen years or so he had been sent numerous letters, cards, gifts and even donations - people thanking him for the fall of Voldemort with little tokens. Due to the fact that he had lived in the house of muggles, none of that mail had ever reached him and had instead piled up in a storage vault in Gringotts. As such, the donations were small, mere trifles, but over the years he had gotten hundreds, if not thousands of them, so they had certainly piled up.

"You are famous and great many people benefited from the Dark Lord's fall, so I suspect it is only natural that something like this should only be expected," Charlie writes to him in his next letter after Harry has informed him of the whole thing, and of the letters, most of which thank him but some of which aren't at all polite. "However I do believe many of those letters were most likely written without much consideration, so pray do not pay them much mind. They are not addressing you as much as they are addressing _what_ _they see you as_ - and that is something you should not bother to take to heart…"

223.

"… not intend to, as their Opinion does not matter to me in the least, no one's except Yours and my Friends does. So truly, it does not bother me," Harry assures in his next letter, making Charlie smile and sigh, relieved that the boy isn't taking insult or hurt for something that could not do much to change. "If nothing else, it has given me some Idea as to how People as Whole perceive me and how little they truly know of me, however, and I will be better prepared in the Future should any Incidents occur. Like this Sirius Black business."

From there the letter, thankfully, moved into more cheerful matters, explaining of how Harry had met some of his classmates and even gone shopping with them - and then hastily assuring that he had not spent much money at all, and had merely bought few new books to read. Charlie shakes his head fondly at this guilty indulgence and wonders what would happen the day when Harry would run out of new books to buy. Something dreadful, no doubt.

224.

Though Harry has not spent his time in the Alley's wholly without company - as many people went through the street daily, some of them Hogwarts students and some of them around often enough to make acquaintance - he is happy when the Weasley family comes to spent the last days in the alley, along with Hermione who introduces him and Ron to her parents. The alley has seemed very interesting before, but with some friends there, it is even more so.

Even if those friends get into a fight over pets, with him, being pet-less, being stuck in the middle. "Which one would you get, rat or a cat?" Ron demands to know while shielding Scabbers from Crookshanks.

"Uh, a dog maybe?" Harry says, aiming for a neutral answer in order to not get caught in their cross fight. He has seen a dog once somewhere. It had been a yappy thing. Then he shakes his head. "No, that's not right at all. A bird. A hawk, perhaps?" Yes, that seems better - a bird can fly along with him, if he ever got the chance to actually try flying as a dragon.

"I don't think hawks make good pets, they're not as even mannered as domesticated owls," Hermione muses. "And owls deliver mail, which makes them doubly more useful," she adds.

"I hadn't thought of that," Harry muses. He has been using the post owls and whatever wild ones which were kind enough to obligate him. Having his own would make his correspondence with Charlie much easier. "I think I would like an owl," he decides, and the fight between his two friends is put to a pause.

225.

With all the excitement going about with Harry in the Diagon Alley, all which is casually and practically reported in his elegant letters and delivered by his new owl, Charlie is relieved when August finally turns to September. From what he had heard from Harry he could tell that the boy got along famously with the goblins and the shopkeepers of the street and that had not done much to reassure him. So, when the final day of august comes and he knows that tomorrow Harry would be back at Hogwarts, and safely away from money-consuming temptations and distractions, he heaves a sigh of relief.

"The Ministry has arranged a transport for Harry to take him and us to the King's Cross safely," his father, who by now has both understood and accepted that Charlie wanted and _needed_ to know these things, writes in his own short report. "Also, there will be additional guard in the Hogwarts Express - the new Defence Against the Dark Art's teacher - who will be ensuring that the train will reach its destination safely. In the school, the ministry has already stationed Dementors along the wards for extra security…"

All of sudden, Charlie feels a cold, sinking feeling in his stomach. Dementors?

226.

While Hermione and Ron put their things away, discussing about what they did during summer, Harry looks at the man leaning to the wall in the corner of the compartment, face hidden in the hood of his cloak. He smells familiar, Harry thinks, and _odd_, but he can't put finger around it, so he turns away to let him sleep and adds his stories to the discussion. They speak of things they had seen, and things they were looking forward to and _Sirius Black_, Harry confessing softly what Charlie had told him, that the man was his godfather.

"Are you scared?" Hermione asks, worried. Harry smiles and shakes his head. It's hard to be, when Sirius Black is only a man and Harry can turn into a dragon, though he doesn't say that.

They keep talking cheerfully, until the train stops, falls silent and then dark, and then the cold comes, creeping along the floor and making the window frost. Harry falls still and silent, tilting his head to the creeping cold and the odd feeling in the back of his mind and then bares his teeth instinctively.

The door opens and a hooded figure peers inside while Harry is overcome sudden, overwhelming sensation of loss and despair. The world drains of colour and warmth and sound and all that is left is the _misery_. And _he is dead, he is gone… the ship, the ship was sunk and he is gone…_ _Nothing in the world was worth anything anymore because he is dead, his Captain is dead, _Laurence_ is…_

"Harry!" a voice calls and he comes to himself. His face is pulled into a snarl and he is growling violently at the creature, that had already been chased away by the sleeping man's spell. The man too is looking down at him, just like Ron and Hermione, worried and then relieved when Harry stops snarling.

Harry blinks slowly, like coming out of long and horrible dream, and looks around. "Laurence?" he asks softly, and Ron and Hermione can only stare at him in confusion that almost equals his own.

227.

Dementors, Charlie thinks incredulously as he reads the Daily Prophet which he has delivered to him from Britain for extra fee. The ministry has stationed twenty Dementors around Hogwarts for "extra protection" until Sirius Black would be found, certain that the mass murderer would be after Harry and thus try and get into the school. To him it seems rather like putting a bunch of werewolves to guard a place from a rabid tiger, and doesn't reassure him in the least.

He sends a letter to Harry that night, cautioning him to be wary and writing down everything he knew about Dementors, about their mercilessness and limited understanding, that they would not hesitate to attack if a person stood in their way - or if they just had a chance. Then he writes similar letter to Ron and Ginny, cautioning them similarly, telling them to not tempt fate. He only hopes it will be enough.

228.

While Madam Pomfrey checks him over, McGonagall asks about his _episode_ and Hermione hovers behind him worriedly, Harry thinks about Laurence and where he could've heard that name before. It seems so familiar, more so than his own name does even, but he cannot think having ever met a man with that name - or even having read about someone named Laurence. And yet the name won't leave him alone, making his chest ache and his throat close up. Laurence. _Laurence_…

The two witches let him go and once Hermione joins him, they head towards the great hall, Harry still thinking. "You were growling, Harry," the girl says quietly. "I thought for a moment that you would attack the Dementor." Harry frowns and doesn't answer, and she sighs. "Who is Laurence?" she asks after a moment.

"I…" Harry starts and cannot continue, cannot say _he doesn't know_, because he does, he does, _of course he does_, and yet…

229.

Ron's letter comes first, carrying him a worrisome tale of Harry's violent reaction to the Dementors that had gone through the train, explaining what he had seen - writing down a name that makes Charlie pause for a moment in odd, bone-deep confusion. Next comes Ginny's letter, re-telling what Ron and Hermione had told her about what happened, and what Harry had seemed like afterwards, she too writing down that _name_, that makes Charlie sit down for a moment, as his mind goes completely blank.

Harry's letter says nothing about the Dementor, nothing about the _name_. He only promises to be careful and avoid Dementors as much as possible - but he ends the letter in a way that tells him more that Ron and Ginny manage to say together. "I wish I was still in the Longhorn Dragon Sanctuary," the boy writes. "I wish I had never had to leave."

Charlie looks through the letters for a long while, confused and still curiously empty-minded, and then he looks up to the sky, where one of the Horntails is flying, circling around the valley. "Laurence?" he more asks than says, and feels oddly helpless under the crushing weight of the name.

230.

The confusion is in the end too much to bear - the name stings Harry in way he can't defend himself against. So he puts it out of his mind the best he can, and throws himself at his books and new classes and surrounds himself with knowledge in hopes of making a shield of it between himself and _Laurence_ - all the while feeling like a traitor for doing it. But it helps. Arithmancy and Runes distract him and Care of Magical Creatures, now under Hagrid's tutelage, entertains him and he can breathe a little easier.

He knows that Ginny and Ron both wrote to Charlie - they both say they did, say that it was only right, considering - and he worries for a while what Charlie would say in his next letter. But Charlie says nothing about the _name_ or even about the _episode_, only tells him to be careful, to keep his head, that "I shall be here for you, always, for whatever reason you might find yourself needing it," which is as good as open invitation. Harry holds the letter to his chest and keeps in mind how easy it would be. Diagon Alley is just a fire call away - and Charlie only at the other side of a Portkey.

And thus he straightens his back and ignores the taunting of Draco Malfoy and the lingering ache of the name, and concentrates onto less painful things.

231.

Charlie goes to work, spending every waking hour mostly with the dragons, working himself to near exhaustion. It makes him feel a little cowardly, but it is easier than thinking of things he cannot quite comprehend and which seem to only throw him into confusion. So he works and works, and when he has no work left, he does his duties over again when he has the chance, or when that is done he does some repairs and fixes harnesses and takes on whatever else little tasks there are available. Thankfully there is never any shortage of work in the sanctuary, and so he spends most of his time in pleasant haze of thoughtless activity.

He only comes out of it to read letters and to write them, and occasionally to take some of his books out to read out loud to the dragons that have already gotten used to the practice and now come cautiously to listen. But it happens more rarely now, as the menial tasks are not only a shield against the confusion, but also against the constant hopeless worrying over Harry. The concept of Sirius Black still looms overhead and only reason it does not give him uneasy dreams is due to the fact of him being too tired by the end of the day to dream of anything.

232.

Professor Lupin, Harry finds, is a better teacher than both Lockhart and Quirrell had been put together, and he especially likes the man's reference towards creatures. The man seems to know multitude of small spells and remedies for equally many encounters, and it's the random little details the man absently explains that makes his classes brim with knowledge and immediately one of Harry's favourites.

Hagrid, on other hand, is rather inauspicious as a teacher but he is eager, and the creatures he brings out are interesting. Harry is a little shocked when he hears of the incident that takes place in his class - and the effect it has on Hagrid is depressing to say the least. Not to mention about watching the way Malfoy behaved afterwards. "I don't understand how one little cut can be so troublesome," he mutters, watching the Slytherin prance his injured arm around like a trophy. "It is only a flesh wound."

"Cuts can be painful," Hermione says, though she too looks annoyed and bothered.

Harry harrumphs, smoothing his hand over the front of his robes and rubbing absently at the chest. He'd very much like to see how Malfoy would take a cannon ball, if a mere cut made him act like this.

233.

Harry seems to overcome whatever shock the Dementors had given him quickly, Charlie muses with some relief while going over his letters, wishing he had had the courage to ask about it before the boy smothered whatever it was. But, after moment of thought, he supposes he can ask at a later date when it is not so fresh, and shakes his head at the thought. Instead of mentioning it or Dementors - or even Sirius Black - his letter to the boy that time is full of questions about his class work and some reminiscing over his own classes.

"I do wish there were tutelage of Languages at Hogwarts," the boy writes with some wistfulness. "I would like to learn Mermish, or Gobbledegook, or some other magical Tongues you can't learn from books." Charlie chuckles at that, not surprised in the least.

234.

"You named your owl _Hedwig_?" Su Li asks in Mandarin while watching as Harry gently ties the letter for Charlie to the owl's leg. "I thought you'd give your pet a Chinese name. Something appropriate and more peaceful than _Hedwig_." She considers the white creature sitting on the windowsill. "Like lotus. It would fit her."

"Name my owl with a Chinese name?" Harry asks in same language, looking at Hedwig, who looks back steadily while clicking her beak. Lotus. _Lianhua,_ he thinks, and frowns. She is white… maybe _Lien_? He shudders abruptly. "No, no, Hedwig is much better," he says determinately.

"You do know that it means battle and war, right?"

Harry blinks, confused and looks at the white owl, who from the first moment has reminded him of white sails splattered with the black stains of gun fire. "I think it suits her," he says, a little defensive.

235.

"No, no, what you want is a muggle gun," one of the caretakers is saying when Charlie passes the dining hall. "Spells don't do anything if you are alone - you need some dozen men to make even a _stupefy_ work - but Muggle guns work just as well on dragons as they do on anything else - you just need a goddamn big gun." Realising that they are talking about dragon slaying, Charlie turns and heads off without a word.

236.

Harry doesn't mind when he's left behind when Hermione and Ron head to Hogsmeade on Halloween. He loads them with list of things they ought to buy him, along with some gold, and waits their return with some excitement. Buying things is interesting, but getting things as a gift is nicer - and even if Hermione and Ron are buying for him on his request with his money, it's still a bit like gift when he is not there to buy it himself.

He spends the time with a book, sitting on windowsill of abandoned corridor where sun was shining just perfectly. Enjoying the warmth and the book, he doesn't notice Professor Lupin before the man calls for him, asking him what he's doing and wondering where his friends where. Hearing the answer, the man asks him if he'd like some tea, and Harry happily obliges. The talk ends up being interesting one, about creatures and demons and future lessons, before Snape interrupts it with a sneer and a steaming potion.

237.

"… as I thought, he is quite Knowledgeable, though I have gained an impression that it might merely be with Magical Creatures - we have not studied Spells, Plants or Potions that can be used in or against Dark Arts, which makes me believe his Expertise lies on the Creature area…" Harry writes in his latest letter, telling Charlie about his meeting with the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. "… we talked about the Boggart. He did not let me try it in the class due to thinking that it would Summon an image of Voldemort, but I do not believe that is what I fear…"

Harry doesn't need to write it out for Charlie to figure out what the boy might fear the most. Perhaps it is for the best that Harry had not faced the Boggart.

238.

The day after Halloween the school is buzzing with rumours. From shocked Hermione and Ron Harry hears that Sirius Black had came into the castle and slashed the portrait guarding the Gryffindor common room when it had not let him in. "What I can't figure out is why he would want to get to Gryffindor," Hermione says after looking Harry closely to see how his reaction. "_You're_ in Ravenclaw."

"Maybe he doesn't know it and just assumed?" Ron asks, but doesn't look convinced.

"Or it is not me he's after," Harry answers, thoughtful. It is both reassuring and very confusing thought. If not him, then what could there be in Hogwarts that Sirius Black could want?

239.

"Sometimes I wish I was as popular as you," one of the other caretakers says amusedly when Charlie is swamped by three letters in the day after Halloween - and then a fourth one that arrives a little later. Somehow not only Harry, but Ron, Ginny and even Hermione had felt the need to report the incident at the castle to him - of which Charlie is grateful, as they all have different ways of telling the story and Harry is rather dismissive of the danger to himself. He was only curious about black's motives or possible goals, not at all worried for himself.

"No, no you don't," Charlie answers with sigh once he is through with the letters. To hear that Sirius Black had gotten to the castle was worrisome, even if the man had tried to get to the wrong house. All the protections in the castle, the wards, the teachers, the Dementors, and the man got in apparently with no trouble at all. With another sigh, Charlie readjusts his neck cloth and wonders if there were any protective spells he hasn't taught or told about to Harry yet.

240.

"I guess mass murderers can come from all walks of life," Ron mutters while looking over the old Daily Prophets Harry and Hermione had been reading through during their research about Sirius Black. "It's darned creepy to think that he was once living in the tower. Hell, he might've slept in my dorm! Or slept in the same bed I sleep now!"

"I think they would've at least changed the mattress by now, if not the whole bed. It was some time ago," Hermione says, amused while folding another unhelpful paper. "This isn't getting us nowhere fast. All we found out was bit about his family history and that he was a Gryffindor. For newspaper, the Prophet doesn't report much."

Harry snorts, looking over the papers. Most of them were at the time too busy reporting Voldemort's death and Harry's own triumph to bother with anything else - despite killing so many people, Black had only gotten small articles in page eight, pushed to the right corner out of the way of a great article about the Ministry. "I think we ought to find a different source of information," he muses and frowns. "I wonder if any of the teachers we have now were teaching when he was at school…"

241.

One of the workers at the Sanctuary somehow procures a muggle rifle, which goes from hand to hand in the sanctuary and then eventually to an empty field, where a target is set up for practice. Few of the older men, Charlie notes from the side as he marvels the weapon's odd design, seem pretty good at handing it, even getting their shots to hit the target, though the younger ones don't seem to have the patience to aim properly.

"Your turn," says one of the men, handing the gun to Charlie after he failed to meet the target. Charlie takes the odd weapon, marvelling the grip and the trigger and the system of loading - so much more efficient, so much more powerful and so light! And yet, somehow, with sturdiness he had not expected. He learns the action of loading it quicker than anyone else, and then takes the time to aim, to learn the sight and the grip, the weight. It doesn't kick even nearly as much as he expects.

"Impressive," says one of the older men, inspecting the target.

Not really, Charlie thinks, handing the marvellous weapon away. Doing that from the back of a flying dragon while under fire and boarded - now, that would be impressive.

242.

"Today we shall discuss Werewolves," professor Snape says, while the class suppresses the urge to ask about Professor Lupin and about why he is not there. Harry, sitting in the back and absently sketching calculations to the boarder of his notebook looks up, blinking.

"Oh," he says half an hour later, after they had gone over full moon cycle and Wolfsbane Potion. Then, after moment of thought, he shakes his head and goes back to writing.

243.

"… I have been considering the natural abilities of Werewolves and Veelas - and other similar Creatures that get their abilities of Transformation through Nature rather than practice and Magic," Harry writes in a letter which Charlie notes lacks any mention of their the _name_, Dementors or Sirius Black, though he cannot say if that is a good or a bad thing. "Perhaps what I am is merely my Inherent Nature. I do honestly feel as if I was Born this way."

Charlie considers it a moment, considering curses and genetic abilities, of magical races. Then he thinks of Animagi and transfiguration - the idea behind had to come from somewhere. Perhaps Harry had had the genetic ability that has merely surfaced… perhaps even due to the incident in his early childhood?

"It is worth looking into, I admit, as I also doubt it is anything less but natural. Consider also the Metamorphmagi, that can change their features at will, which is a genetic ability of human magicians. However I do hope you do not let it distract you too much. Remember, your safety is always more important than anything else, even knowledge."

244.

"I don't know what I was thinking," a worn and tired looking Hermione sighs, falling sit next to Harry who was reading a book about Metamorphmagi. "I always wondered why you didn't take more than three electives, but I think I get it now." She is quiet for a moment before frowning up at him. "Why didn't you take Divination?" she asks. "I know Ron tried to urge you because it's a mixed class."

"I like it better not knowing what will happen. It is more exciting that way," Harry answers and frowns, thinking of Sirius Black and Charlie's worries and cautions. Then he shakes his head. "And it did not seem at all as interesting as Arithmancy or Ancient Runes. Or Care of Magical Creatures, of course," he adds, as an afterthought and then gives her a look. "That is a very nice necklace," he points out at the sight of the golden chain around her neck. "Where did you get it?"

"Ah… I'm only borrowing it," Hermione answers, tucking the necklace beneath her robes. "It's supposed to help me. With reading and studying, you know."

Harry raises his eyebrows and she flushes red. "I did not think you would need help with studying. Does it work?" he asks, curious.

"Not as much as I'd hope," she answers, oddly sour, and sits up. "Come on, or we'll miss Ginny's first Quidditch match."

245.

"… it was horrible," Ron writes in the letter that is, no doubt, one of the most difficult Charlie has ever read. "One moment it was just raining and awful, but the game was going on normally, so we bore it and so on. But then it got cold and even worse, it seemed like it was raining sleet, and then it was all quiet and really eerie! And then there were, the bloody Dementors - hundred of them at least, all standing around on the pitch - and then Harry was… growling again, like back in the train, except worse. And then he was _roaring_ - I swear, I still can't hear properly, it was so loud! And down the Dementors went, like weeds!"

"…Harry won't say anything, but I'm under the impression that he doesn't remember actually doing it, the roaring," Hermione's more informative letter, arriving only some minutes later, informs him. "I heard from him that Madam Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore suspect that it was unintentional magic - a sort of defence mechanism. Harry has unnaturally violent reaction towards the Dementor's effect, and his magic took that reaction and used it to way of expelling itself, hence the horrendous impact of his roar. I am not so sure, I have seen his… roar before, but it didn't have power like this then…"

"… Eighteen of the Dementors were sent back to Azkaban after the incident - their bones couldn't take the impact and shattered, one of the Dementors even collapsed completely with broken spine and completely crumbled rip cage, they don't expect it to survive," his father writes in a more informing letter that arrives a little later. "Harry won't be held responsible, as the Dementors weren't supposed to be on the pitch in the first place - though Lucius Malfoy did try butting in, claiming it destruction of Ministry Property, only to be shot down by the Headmaster. Dumbledore is furious…."

Harry sends him nothing - and when Ginny sends simple, "You better come here, now," Charlie doesn't hesitate.

246.

When his Captain marches into the hospital ward, heaving breaths after a run and looking worried, Harry stared at him with wide eyes and blank face for a long while, not quite believing what he was seeing. Because… because wasn't he dead? He had felt it, seen it even, in his mind's eyes, and the horrible emptiness was there still… Maybe it was a ghost? But no, his Captain was quite corporeal, not at all see through like ghosts were.

"Harry!" the man calls, coming to him, sitting beside him. His hands feel real, warm and heavy and strong.

"Laurence? But aren't you dead?" Harry asks softly, quietly, looking between the man's face and his hands before daring to reach out. He _feels_ solid, he really does. Is it a trick?

"Of course I'm not, my dear," his Captain says, confused and reassuring. "I am here."

The words seem to echo from far away - from another world, from a distant past - but somehow, they're just right.

247.

"It can sometimes happen, when one is sensitive," Madam Pomfrey explains, looking a little pale as she does. "It… often happens to the prisoners of Azkaban. Their fears can become so real that everything else distorts and they start to believe that the horrors are the reality. Mr. Potter could barely handle a single Dementor - a hundred of them in one place… it overwhelmed him."

Charlie nods darkly, trying not to think about how Harry had been shaking in his arms before falling asleep, even after two hours of reassurances not quite believing that Charlie had not died. Or the fact that the boy had called him Laurence. "What would you suggest?" he asks, noticing from the corner of his eye that Dumbledore, who had apparently heard of his arrival, was striding towards them."

"Honestly? Take Mr. Potter away from here," the matron said. "If the Dementors break free from their commands once, they will do it again - and I fear that the third time might be too much for the boy."

248.

Harry tries not to overhear, but it is hard when the argument is going on over his head.

"No, sir, I will not have it and nothing short of hanging order will make me change my mind - and even that would make me only proceed quicker!" his Captain answers when Dumbledore demands that he'd return to Romania and, in polite words, mind his own business. "How many times has that boy been attacked in this school without anyone standing, truly standing, in his defence? You cannot reassure me with hollow promises when he has came, time and time again, in mortal peril under your nose - when, even after this incident, you try and say that Hogwarts is safe for him when it most definitely is not!"

"Mr. Weasley, I know you have fondness towards the boy - fondness which, I must say, I find highly worrying considering the boy's age -"

"My fondness towards Harry and worry for his safety is the only reason I have yet to seek out and set those blasted Dementors all aflame! No, sir, not another word. I am taking Harry out of this school - and trust me, I am no more forgiving towards anyone standing in my way, than a Dementor would be!"

249.

Charlie seethes silently, as the Headmaster tries to appeal to Harry to stay in the school, saying that surely he would prefer to stay there than go away in middle of his first semester like this, surely he'd like to learn magic and face his fears rather than hide. Surely he wasn't a coward and run away at the first sign of trouble? Charlie just barely manages to keep himself from cursing the meddlesome old fool when he says that - because he doesn't know anything, doesn't know what Harry has _done_, the feats he has accomplished, the difficulties he has faced!

Harry on other hand seems to seriously think about it. When the Headmaster asks what would make him stay, however, the answer seems to shock the old man to the core. "I trust my Captain, if he says I'm safer elsewhere, then I am. But if I'd get to destroy all the Dementors, maybe he'd think I'd be safe here - and I am sure I could do it, it wouldn't be difficult at all," Harry says almost reassuringly. The worry Charlie feels when Harry calls him _his Captain_ doesn't stop him from taking the opportunity to lead the boy away from the shell-shocked old man.

250.

Harry doesn't like the idea of running away, but he likes the idea of being around Dementors even less - he doesn't want to feel the loss again, never again. So he is nothing but glad when they arrive to the Burrow, and Bill arrives soon to set up wards against possible attack from Sirius Black. It is all inconsequential, though, because his Captain is there and _alive_ and everything will be alright, Harry thinks and allows himself finally to relax a little.

His withdrawal from Hogwarts makes the Prophet's front page next day.

xx

Merry Christmas! Busy chapter this time, lot of stuff happening. And more Harry Charlie Temeraire Laurence fluff, yay. Sorry for the delay, after I totally phailed Nanowrimo, my attention strayed off to frolic with Stargate crossovers. But the story is not abandoned, far from it, just on small break at least while I satisfy my inner scifi-geek.

My apologies for possible grammar errors.


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